Empire
by Avalon1632
Summary: After taking over the Chase-Space from her parents, Victoria guides the company to become a world-spanning mega-corp dominating the media. After one of her reporters find something they shouldn't, the company is taken from her and Victoria is thrust into the Shadows. She finds old friends and old enemies alike while trying to regain her corporate throne. Inspired by Shadowrun.
1. Fall of Empire

Chapter I: Fall of Empire - Sunday Evening/Monday Morning

* * *

AN:

Hey there, Fan-fic-folks!

I'm back! Mostly. Still busy with uni. Christ on a bicycle, this shit is far more time-consuming than it has any damn right to be. Plus, I made the truly terrible decision to go to a uni 2+ hours away from where I live, a journey that requires taking a bus that literally hasn't been on time in two years. Bloody timetable is pretty much theoretical at this point. Anyways, just wanted to update y'all, make sure you know I'm not dead or anything. Plus, I actually got to write something that wasn't a multi-thousand word essay, which was hella nice. Admittedly I'm still too busy to work on the main stories and these two were mostly complete already so it was only editing and writing final scenes for both, but still. Writing! Egad, I have missed it. Anyway, I'm cutting this overly enthusiastic ramble short with the news that I'm getting ahead on my uni work, so I should be able to start reupdating regularly sometime in December/January. And Scene!

This one is based on the world of Shadowrun. It's a near-future Cyberpunk-Fantasy world. Corporations rule a dystopian world and conduct regular espionage and sabotage against one another. The people who are hired for that sabotage are called Shadowrunners. There are orcs and elves and other fantasy races, all adapted to a near-future setting, a lot of cool tech to play with and I mean a LOT; Cyber implants, computers called Decks that allow people to enter a Virtual Reality Internet called The Matrix (think Tron (if you don't know Tron go watch it immediately)), drones and RC versions of actual vehicles so you can call your plane/boat/truck to come get you, magic of multiple types, monsters and men, all the usual good stuff.

There's a Tabletop RPG that's pretty good (Except for 5th Edition. Whoever created 5th Edition Shadowrun needs to be marooned in the deepest level of the Abyss for the rest of eternity), a few video games, a surprising number of books and comics, and a bunch of other stuff, so if you're interested, there's plenty to get into.

For those of you who are interested how this story relates generally in the Shadowrun Timeline, this story is set in the early 2050s. So, Pre-Dunkelzahn Presidency, Pre-Shadowrun Returns, Pre-SURGE, Pre-Second Matrix Crash, etc. Victoria and the other Blackwellians are all in their early 30s (I haven't decided specifically when yet). If you don't give a toss, then eh. Enjoy.

Oh, and finally, this story is dedicated to the Oxford Comma. You go, you poor, underutilised bastard.

Thanks for reading and, as always, please review.

* * *

Ugh. I roll my eyes as I read yet another clunky, shittily-written sentence. I swear if I get my hands on whoever wrote this section for the morning broadcast, I'm going to fill them full of cyberware and leave them in my microwave for a few hours until they melt. They deserve that much, simply for mutilating the English language this fucking badly.

I delete the drek trying to pass for a decent news story and send a strongly worded message to the newsroom producer informing him that I would happily add him to the microwave punishment if I wasn't sent something better before morning. That done, I closed down my computer with a sigh, leaning back in my chair and running my hand through my hair.

Ugh. Why can't I get competent underlings?

I stand up and pace around my desk and up to the large arched window that dominated one wall of my home office. I had to blink hard a few times to get the shadow-images of my screen out of my eyes so I could actually see out of it properly. I'd paid for the best view in the bay, so I was going to damned well use it. When I finally managed to clear the ghosts, I walked up, leaned on the window frame and just watched.

I could see a boat coming into the shitty old dock that the bay still relied on. I'd tried to get them to replace it, but they responded with some 'heritage site' bullshit and refused any offer I made. And I made some seriously generous offers.

I sigh. Fuck, I've been working too damn long. Running this company is getting to be like a second fucking marriage. And it took me long enough to get out of the first one.

I snort. At least my company took my name. The paperwork needed to change mine after the divorce was seriously ridiculous. So glad I didn't have to go through that again.

A loud beeping from my computer draws me out of contemplating that fucking rabbit hole. I blink in surprise and walk over to check it. That was quick. Maybe I won't have to fire up the microwave after all.

I frown as I catch the sender name. "Huh." Juliet? What the hell does she want?

Juliet was my best reporter, not that I'd ever tell her that. Back at School, she'd always been obsessed with Journalism. She'd even gotten a stupid fucking nickname. The 'X-Treme Reporter'. But, after she'd left school, she'd lost everything. Nobody outside Tir Tairngire would hire an Elf.

Fucking idiots.

You wanna be the best, you hire the best, no matter who they are. Or, well, _what_ they are, I guess.

Either way, I hired her, made her one of my lead reporters, and she was fan-fucking-tastic. One of the best business decisions I'd ever made. She had kind of mixed feelings about it. On one hand, she was grateful for a job, and on the other, she hated me. I'd made ChaseSpace Media the biggest name in Journalism and Entertainment on the entire planet, even getting a Prince's Seal from Tir Tairngire, and she'd couldn't get employed anywhere without my help.

I opened the flashing icon that indicated I had a new message.

'Took a look at those old Foundation files you sent me. Most of it's pure drek, but there's some potential for a story here. Found a couple files I couldn't access. Thought you'd like to give it a go with that bitty box of yours, being an amateur Decker and all. Try not to get geeked, omae.

Juliet.'

I ignored the insult. Amateur, hah. That's...

Huh.

I brought up the file.

Huh again. The big red message flashing on my desktop saying "Matrix-Access Acquired" had definitely caught my interest. I stared at it for a few seconds before... fuck it. I opened my bottom desk drawer and fished out my old deck.

I'd been modding and upgrading this thing for years, replacing components every time something newer and faster came out. Advantages of money, right? It was probably one of the most expensive things I owned. I pulled out the cable and slotted it into the datajack in my temple, feeling that familiar sense of comforting relief wash over me as the blue of the Matrix appeared.

I opened up a virtual demi-world and dropped the files in there. There we go, securely quarantined. No way in hell was I letting this thing infect the rest of my systems. Once it was safely contained, I dropped myself into the demi-world too. It was nothing complex, just a simple single-room sim. The file was sitting on a table, the one piece of furniture in the room.

I walked over, and opened the file.

Lines of code immediately burst out of it like paper out of a fucking party popper, streaking across the room.

They ricocheted off the walls and collided with my avatar. I screamed as they bit into me like fucking maggots, burrowing their way into my base-code. I tried to fight back, pull up an armour program, but the maggot ICE was too quick.

In the few seconds before I blacked out, I could've sworn I heard a discordant, electronic laugh.

* * *

The first thing I felt when I woke up was pain. My fucking head was killing me. There was a... cold, metallic sensation on my face. Oh. I landed on my deck. I rolled over and stared up at the ceiling, running a hand through my hair. "Ugh. Stupid fucking Ice, shit-eating bastards..."

I went on like that for a while. I knew a lot of swearwords.

When I finally calmed down and paid attention to my situation, I realised my hands had been shaking uncontrollably the entire time. Not a lot, but every Decker knows the signs of biofeedback. Whatever was in that fucking file had damaged the myelin sheaths around the neurons in my brain, leading to signal leakage. My brain signals were spreading in transit, becoming weak.

I tried to stand up, but wobbled and fell back down to the ground. Argh. Fucking Biofeedback. I needed to get to my desk before the nervous system damage became permanent.

After another couple of attempts, I finally managed to pull myself to my feet. I made it two steps towards my desk before I fell down again.

Fuck it.

I stayed on the floor and just crawled, feeling my arms shake the whole way, until I reached my desk. I yanked open the drawer my deck had been in and jerkily pawed through it until... ahah! I pulled out the syringe and immediately jammed it into my datajack. I sighed as the Biofeedback Medication filled my system.

I let myself sag and slip down onto my carpet, relaxing as the shakes stopped. Thank fuck for that.

That's when I noticed the small alarm blaring from my computer. I pulled myself up and clicked it. An internal camera alert? I opened the feed and threw it over to the main monitor. The picture expanded and... what the fuck? There were people in the building. In _my_ building?!

They were wearing black armour, with helmets covering their faces, and they were currently in a shooting match with my security forces. They fucking dare? They broke into my fucking home? I watched in shock as they blasted their way through my hirelings and moved on to the next group, quickly and quietly.

These assholes were professionals. Shadowrunners. Drek, I hated Shadowrunners. They were the bane of any CEO's existence. These were my first, though. I took a minute to wonder what I'd done recently to merit this visit. Before I could work it out, Rachel burst into my office. "We've gotta go, Vic!"

Rachel was in her usual armour with her little machine-gun dangling from a strap on it. As my head of security, she was eternally concerned with my safety. "Do you know who these people are?"

"Not a fragging idea, omae. But they're pushing their way through my people. They're holding them at the second floor, but they won't last long. We need to get you out of here. The way these guys are wired, they're definitely here for wetwork."

My eyes bulge. "Wetwork?! They're here to kill me?" I glance back at the screen, watching yet another security guy get gunned down. Oh fuck, oh shit, I...

Rachel grabs onto my shoulders and holds me still so I'm looking straight at her. "Victoria, we can get you out of here and call in the bronze. These guys'll run the minute the heatwave drops. It'll be okay, so ka?"

"O-okay." I took a breath. "I'm okay. Where do we go?"

She grinned at me. "Wiz. And downstairs."

I gape at her. "Downstairs! But that's where the runners are!"

"It's also where our way out is." She grins at me, "Don't worry so much. Just stick with me and you'll be fine."

We made our way out of my office and headed for one of the side stairs. There were three in the mansion, one in the middle and one at each end. The Shadowrunners were heading to the centre stairs and fanning out along both wings, so we took the side.

Rachel lead us along the corridors of the top floor, stopping every now and again to check the corners. We made it to the stairs and down to the first floor without any trouble. It was only when we got close to the door that we had a problem.

"There's three of them." I peeked over the dresser we were hiding behind in the direction Rachel pointed and there they were. Two were human, flanking a seven or eight foot tall troll. The gun he was holding was huge. If he put it down, it'd be taller than I was.

"What are we going do?"

Rachel's only answer was another grin. She pulled up her satchel and started rooting through it. Jesus, what the hell is she doing? "What are you looking for?"

She pulls out a little sphere with a triumphant little 'aha!'. "This little thing. It's something the tech guys cooked up. Modified EMP." She waved over at the three mercenaries. "You see their legs? Cyberware. This will disable them."

Without waiting for me to respond, she threw the grenade over at them. It flew in a graceful arc and landed right between the troll's feet. He looked down and it exploded. All three mercs immediately collapsed and Rachel grabbed me. "Run, now!"

We ran as fast as we could past the wriggling bastards and out the door, heading straight for the garage. Rachel didn't stop once, barrelling through the door and dragging me over to the SK-Bentley. She basically threw me through the passenger side window, the bitch, then hopped into the drivers seat.

She threw me an amused grin, I threw her a pissed-off glare, then she revved the engine and sped off down the road. The car ate up the miles with ease; I only bought the best, after all. As we closed on the town, Rachel turned to look at me and smiled smugly. "Told you we'd get away."

I roll my eyes. "Smugness is not an attractive quality, Rachel."

She laughs, even more smugly. "Yes it is."

I turn to retort, and spot headlights speeding toward us. "Rachel, watch ou-!"

The truck smashes into us and flips the car. Everything seems to go through slow motion as we flip through the air. I end up hitting my head on the dashboard and black out.

The next few minutes were... kind of hazy. I remember being on the ground, everything hurting like a bitch, trying to stand up. Then, I catch sight of Rachel, lying a few metres away from me.

She wasn't moving.

"Ra-" I cough and my body is racked with pain. "Rachel!"

A figure melts out of the shadows, striding towards her. I turn my head, gritting my teeth as more pain jolts through my neck and upper back, to look at them.

The person is huge, big enough to make me think drone for a few seconds, until I catch sight of his face and the two tusks in his jaw, both the size and thickness of my forearm. It's... Oh, frakk. It's the troll from my foyer. How the hell did he catch up to us?

He stops just short of Rachel and looks down, laughing as she suddenly moves and fires twice at him. Both shots ricochet harmlessly off his armour. "You really are a persistent one, aren't you?"

Rachel says something up to him that I don't hear, and he laughs again. "Well, we'll have to remedy that, won't we?" He waves a hand and two more figures melt out of the shadows, both black-suited shadowrunners, and grab Rachel.

I try to sit up, but everything hurt too fucking much, so I settled for talking lying down. "Y-you..."

He looks over in my direction and grins. "Yes. Me." He stands up and walks past Rachel and towards me.

"Wh-who..."

"Who sent me? Now, Ms Chase. I am a professional. I can't just tell you, can I?" He leans in. "Where's the fun in that?" He straightens up with a sigh. "But, my orders are clear. Termination is a mission priority." He pulls a revolver from his belt and aims it in my direction. "So, I suppose there's really no problem with telling you." He raises the gun. "The person who hired us is..."

There's several sharp cracks as shots ring out and collide with the troll's armour, forcing him back. He whirls and looses a few rounds from his revolver, but more shots thunk into him and his armour makes a loud cracking sound. The fucker's eyes bulge in alarm and he runs off.

Fucking coward. I try shout as he leaves, but everything was starting to go dark again, so I just end up muttering "Rachel. Rachel." over and over again like a fucking lunatic.

Hands wrap around me from behind and I wriggle, trying to get away from them, but they're seriously strong. "Don't worry, it's okay, you're safe now. We've got you."

The voice sounded... reassuring. After the shitshow of the last half hour, a reassuring voice was really fucking comforting, so I trusted whoever it was and let myself black out again.

I've been doing that a lot today.

I am so gonna have brain damage if I wake up.

* * *

Someone is trying to shake me awake. I angrily slap their hand away and roll over with a muttered "Stoppit. Lemme go back t'sleep."

The fucker laughs and shakes me again. "Come on, Victoria. You've been in bed for long enough."

I scoff. Thanks, Mom.

Wait.

That's not Mom. She's been dead for six fucking years and... Oh, frakk. Rachel... an-and that Troll. Did that really happen?

I think it did.

I open my eyes.

Then, my mouth drops open. "Kate..?"

The face hovering over me beams in satisfaction. "You do remember! That's good. I was worried there'd be brain damage. Your fMRI scans were... bizarre, to say the least." She gives me a look that clearly asks if I know how bad that is.

I didn't.

When I don't respond, she retreats over to a small desk in the corner. There's an old computer sat open on it and, surprisingly, a stack of books. Kate always did love her old books.

I get distracted from my musings when a fly buzzes annoyingly around my head. I swipe at it, and it retreats off to somewhere else in the room.

I blink as I take in more of the room around me; the _unfamiliar_ room around me. "Uh, Kate?"

She smiles. "Yes, Victoria?"

"What happened? Where am I?"

She blinks, then frowns. It's still as cute as it was back in school. She scrunches up her nose and gets this little furrow between her eyebrows that- "Oh, you don't remember?"

"I... I remember the troll, but nothing after that." An image of the troll pointing that revolver down at me flashes into my head. I close my eyes and force it away. Not now. Not. NOW. I look slowly around the room, noting the worn, but expensive-looking medical equipment surrounding my bed. I've interviewed a lot of people, in a lot of facilities, and I can tell the bad from the good. This place definitely falls in the latter category. "Where am I? Is this a Docwagon facility?"

It had better be. I pay those assholes millions of nuyen a year for corporate coverage.

"Not... exactly. You're in my chopshop."

Her chopshop? Kate Marsh is a fucking sawbones? I gape at her. "You run a fucking Black Clinic? You? What happened to the whole..." I wave a hand. "artist, thing?"

She shrugged. "People change, Victoria. After I Awakened, I... I found my calling." She focuses for a second, and a tiny... thing appears on her shoulder. "This is Alice."

"Alice..?"

Kate extends a hand and 'Alice' runs down it, settling at the end of her hand and tilted her little head curiously at me. She chitters for a second and Kate nods. "It's okay, Alice. She's a friend."

Alice extends her head and, numbly, I reach out and stroke her. She visibly vibrates when I do, then skitters back up Kate's arm to hide near her shoulder. Kate smiles. "It seems she likes you."

"She's a nature spirit, right?"

Kate hmms. "She is. Modern medical tech makes surgery less... disruptive to the patient than it used to be, but it's still an ordeal for both the body and the spirit. I do my best to heal the whole patient." She reaches up and pets Alice, who chitters again. "This little one helps with the post-surgery healing rituals."

"Huh." Kate smiles as I stare at the little creature, feeling weirdly mellow. "So, um... what's it like? Being a Shaman?"

She shrugs. "Like being a Decker, I imagine. We both see things most people don't."

"Huh." I really need to stop saying that. "How long have you lived in Portland? I kind of... lost track of you, after school." I lost track of a lot of people then. My 'loving husband' made fucking sure of that.

She frowns, tilting her head. "Oh, of course, I didn't realise... We're not in Portland. We're in Seattle."

"Seattle?" That was hours north of both Portland and the Bay. Even longer if you tried to cross The Wall legally... "How did I get here?"

Kate opens her mouth to speak, but someone interrupts her. "That would be us, ace."

Kate sighs. "I was so hoping to keep this revelation until later..."

I look over to the figure standing in the door and my mouth drops open again. "Juliet..?"

She grins, and it's more relaxed than I've ever seen her. "Hey boss. You look like drek."

I gape at her and her grin turns into a laugh. "The Great Victoria Chase, lost for words. I never thought I'd see the day." She slinks into the room, stopping just short of the bed. When I glare at the smug bitch, she sighs. "Okay, okay. So, I... kind of don't _just_ work for you..." She gives me a look like she's expecting me to explode.

She _WHAT?!_ Inside, I'm furious. This bitch was two timing me? Me?! But outside, I stay cool and calm. I enjoy surprising people. "Who else do you work for?"

After a few seconds, she shrugs. "A local Fixer. She hired me to use your resources to find information for her."

"You fucking traitorous bitch."

She snorts. "Oh, that's wiz, coming from you, tridmonger. How many times have you turned on some poor schmuck you'd got a shitty deal with and fragged them with that media empire of yours just 'cause they dared to do something that pissed you off?" She leans in. "But what are you gonna do, now you've lost it all?"

"Juliet!" Kate snaps and Juliet fucking flinches. "You will not antagonise my patient in front of me, understood?"

"Understood. Sorry, Doc."

Kate glares. "And her."

Juliet sighs, then turns to me. "Sorry Victoria."

Kate's glare turns to me. I flinch when I spot the little flames flickering in her eyes. "Sorry, Juliet."

Then, the flames in Kate's eyes spark out and she's smiling again. "Good. No arguing in my clinic."

I look back at Juliet and motion for her to continue. She does. "When you and Rachel were chased out of the estate, I called the fixer to let her know. Her team picked you up, after you crashed, and brought you here."

"Here? To a Chopshop?" I glance at Kate. "No offence."

She waves a hand dismissively. "Null sheen, Victoria."

"You know if you brought me to any of their facilities, Docwagon would've taken care of my treatment?" I raise an eyebrow and stare at Juliet, expecting her to offer immediately to transfer me. "No need to bother taking me all the way to Seattle."

But she doesn't. She and Kate share a look. Kate shakes her head, almost imperceptibly, but I'm used to observing micro-expressions in interviews. "Kate..? What's..."

"Nothing, Victoria." Hmph. She hasn't gotten any better at lying since school. "You concentrate on getting better. There'll be plenty of time for that later."

"May-" I angrily swipe at the fly as it buzzed around my head again. "Damn fly! Kate, don't you have a fucking bug zapper or something?"

Kate frowned. "I do, actually. There's a fly..?" Her eyes flashed for a second. She stared intently at the fly then... she growled. "What have I told you about drones in my ward?"

A figure steps out of a dark spot in the corner, laughing. "You're no fun, Kate."

I catch sight of her face. Oh, you have got to be fucking kidding me...

"Max _fucking_ Caulfield?!" My mouth opened and closed uselessly as I tried to process this... unplanned school reunion. "Y-you're..."

The dwarf girl grins up at me. "Still hella short?"

Another voice echoes through the door. "Max? Max? Where the fuck are you?"

"In here, Chloe!" Max calls back.

Chloe..?

Oh frakk...

A tall, built figure bursts through the door. "Vicky! You're awake!" Her hair is long, and electric blue, and she's in need of some serious dental work.

"Chloe. Price."

I groan and the Ork girl grins at me, exposing yet more of her awful teeth. "In the flesh, omae." She turns to Juliet. "Didya tell her yet?"

"Not yet, Chloe." Juliet rolls her eyes.

Chloe whirls and looks over at me, still grinning. "Our boss wants to talk to you."

I raise an eyebrow. "You mean the fixer who hired Juliet?"

Chloe nods. "Yep. That's the one. She runs this whole neighbourhood. You wanna stay, you gotta get her say-so. And her help to lose your SIN."

Lose my SIN? I frown. "Why would I-"

Kate suddenly stands up. "Alright, alright. Everyone out."

When everyone immediately protests, she holds up a hand.

They all immediately shut up.

Woah.

"My ward. My rules. And my rules say you're all crowding my patient. So, out."

Everyone grumbles, but the three of them wander out. Chloe calls back to me as she leaves. "We'll come back to take you to the Boss hella soon!"

I sigh, relief flooding through me. I'd gone back to my school self the second I saw Max. Old grudges die hard, I suppose. "Thanks, Kate."

She smiles. "Null sheen. That was a little too much, too soon. I'll try keep things peaceful as long as I can, but..." Her smile drops. "you'll have to see the old lady sooner or later though."

I give her an indolent shrug. "I'm sure. Will she be able to arrange my transport back to Tir Tairngire? I really need to get back to the office." And find someone to hunt down that ork bastard, and find Rachel.

Kate sighs. "Another revelation I was hoping to keep for later. Unless you've changed far more than I realised since Blackwell, you're not going to let up about it until I tell you, so..."

She pulls a seat up to the side of my bed. "You can't go home."

I blink. "What? Are you holding me prisoner?"

She shakes her head. "No, not that, it's just..." Her mouth crinkles as she tries to find the words for whatever she's about to say. "Your house was attacked, by runners. They destroyed the entire place after you left."

"So ka. And the sooner I get back, the sooner I can start hunting them down." I snarl. "They're gonna regret ever attacking me."

She shakes her head again. "It's not just that. There was damage to your DocWagon Implant, so the world thinks you died, and..."

She trails off and the bottom drops out of my stomach. "And what, Kate?"

"And somebody bought your company."

I immediately sit straighter. "Someone WHAT?!"

She nods mutely.

"Who?" I growl.

"Saeder-Krupp."

"Saeder? Fragging? Krupp? That asshole wyrm Lofwyr stole my company?" A Great Dragon had hired runners to take me down. How had I fucked up badly enough to attract a Dragon's attention?

"We think so. He bought your company about two hours after you were reported dead." She hesitated. "I'm sorry."

I slumped back against the bedframe. "Damnit. Damnit damnit damnit." I ran my hand through my hair, muttering angrily under my breath. "How could I let this happen? Everything I fucking worked for, gone. Everything." I wipe at my eyes. "Damnit. Damnit damnit damnit."

After a few minutes, Kate stood up and silently left the room.

My muttering turned into sobbing as I came to terms with it. Everything I'd built over the last ten years was gone. Wyrms never gave up their prizes once they had them. I was completely alone for the first time since school... No employees, no resources, no home... I'd have to kill him to get my company back.

Kill Lofwyr... I thought muzzily, as I drifted down into sleep.

* * *

"-and our new company CEO, SK's own ex-CTO Carter Ozman, will be speaking later this afternoon on what this new chapter in Chase Space Entertainments' life will contain." It's only by sheer restraint that I don't throw the fucking tablet across the room. Instead, I squeeze it hard enough that the casing cracks.

"Y'know you haven't got the scratch to replace that if ya frag it, omae?"

I look up and glare at the smirking orkish face staring down at me. "What do you want, chummer?" I practically spit out the runner vernacular.

She laughs. "You suits really can't talk normal, can ya?"

I sigh. "What do you want, Grunger?"

She bristles at the race jab. "Nana wants to see you ASAP."

Nana? "Who the hell is Nana?"

Chloe just shrugs. "She's the boss."

Oh. I'm finally going to get to meet the woman responsible for Juliet's betrayal. "I assume we're going to her?"

Chloe snorts. "Yeah. Nana wants to talk to you, you go to her."

I shrug. "Alright." Truth be told, I was kind of curious. I sigh, as I realise "You'll have to help me up though."

She nods and, without a word, helps me to my feet. Kate watches me from her desk with a smile as we walk towards the exit. "Good luck!" She waves.

I wave vaguely back and step out, and am immediately assaulted by the local stench. Delightful. My sinuses will thank me for getting out of this when I'm home. The Tir might be a racist dictatorship, but at least the air is clean.

As we walk across the neighbourhood, people skitter out of our way. Chloe doesn't even spare them a glance. She just strides ahead, a few paces in front of me, leading us to wherever this Nana wants us to be.

I wonder if she's Mafia. They're into the familial titles. Last I heard, they weren't doing so well here though. The Yaks were moving in from Japan, taking out the local Korean branches, and aggressively moving in on Mafia territory. The Mafia had responded by bringing the Hammer out from retirement.

The war had been going on for the last ten years with no change.

The last thing I wanted was to get involved like that. One of the rules of my profession was strict neutrality. We made no judgements, never criticised or praised. We simply reported.

Chloe leads us up to a small house tucked between two towering apartment blocks. It's... quaint, white picket fence wrapped around a small garden, with a stairway leading up to the one incongruity in the outer structure - a solid steel security door. The same one the ChaseSpace Headquarters building had, actually. That's the only hint this building is the home to a Made Woman.

Chloe strides up to it, and raps on it five times. After a few seconds, the door slides open and a heavyset, dark-skinned troll with a psychedelically coloured Mohawk steps out. He nods on seeing Chloe. "Hey Blue."

Chloe nods back. "Bolan. The old lady's expecting us."

Bolan's eyes flick over to me. One of his irises rotates as his bioware eye focuses on me. He scans my body, eye moving from my side to my hip to my shoes. "Turn around, please."

I raise an eyebrow at Chloe, who nods at me to get on with it already. I turn, and his eye scans the rest of me. "You can turn back around now."

I glare at him.

He doesn't seem bothered.

"She's in the front." He meets my eyes. "Behave, wageslave. We have our eyes on you."

Before I can retort, Chloe plants her palm in the small of my back and shoves me through the door. The inside is even quainter than the outside. Faded floral wallpaper lines the walls, the carpet is worn, and there's that faint musty smell that always seems to layer every old person's home.

I shrug Chloe off, readjust my coat. "Where to now?"

"Through here. And fucking remember what Bolan said. You be a bitch here, and Nana won't think twice about dusting you."

I smirk. "Noted."

She knocks at a door, then pushes it open. I follow her through into the tackiest sitting room I'd ever seen. Everything clashed, from the upholstery to the woodwork, and there was a truly uncomfortable overabundance of _tassels._ The tackiest thing in the room, a painfully bright red velvet chair, was occupied.

This must be Nana.

She was stocky. Not Dwarvish stocky, but still a very sturdy-looking woman. Her skin was dark, her hair was grey (and pulled into a tight, almost grandmotherly bun), and a little pair of shaded pince-nez perched on the end of her nose. She looks up when we enter. "What'm I gon' do with you, Blue?"

Chloe bows her head. "I'm sorry, Nana. What were we supposed to do, just leave her?"

Nana nods emphatically. "Yeah, you were. But, ain't nothin' gonna be change now, I guess." She takes off her glasses and leans forward, looks me over. "An' I s'pose you must be Ms Chase."

I nod politely. "Yes, Nana." She wanted manners, I could do manners.

She grins. "Good. They's told you how things work 'round here." She leans back in her chair again. "So, I hears Lofwyr took your company?"

"Yeah." I take a deep breath, force myself not to say more. These people were definitely criminals, even if Nana wasn't Mafia. They still required Blood for membership, so Nana, with her dark skin and Cajun accent, wasn't really Made material.

"An' I hears you still a SINner?" Her voice is hard as steel, and suspicious as a CI. But there's a hint of curiosity there too.

"I am." I get the idea that there's not much point to lying to this woman. I've got nothing left. I need all the allies I can get.

She snorts, glances at Chloe. "An' you still think bringin' her here was a good idea?"

Chloe nods, but doesn't meet Nana's eye. It's seriously weird. She was the most belligerent, fuck-authority person I'd ever met, and she's bowing to this woman?

"Well then. I guess we's gon' hafta work out some sort of deal, ain't we?"

I frown. I really don't like her tone. "A deal?"

She hmms. "See, this is my neighbourhood, an' these is my people. You puttin' 'em all in danger. First time you walk outside, get caught on a camera, you're gonna bring the heat down on alla us." She taps a stubby finger on her knee. "So, we're gonna have to get that biz seen to. Confess that SIN of yours, an' we'll get it burned." She grins, and it splits her face like a gaping knife wound. "An' in return, you gonna do somethin' for me."

"And what would that be?"

She shrugs. "I dunno. What you good at? Theys brought you in with a pretty high-price deck. You know how to use it, sha?"

I smirk. "You hired Juliet to gain internal access to my systems. I assume you tried to hack me first?"

She nods. "Some powerful software there. Fried a brain or two in the commune before we got 'ole Jules in."

"I wrote that software."

The bitch laughs, actually laughs! "Naw way, sha. Suits like you don't get their hands dirty like that."

Heh. Now I know my way in. "Give me something to hack. I'll prove it."

She raises an eyebrow of her own, and gives me a long, lingering look of appraisal. "Hmm. I think I might have somethin' for you to do then. We need a new decker."

"What's the job?" I'd interviewed enough runners to know what questions to ask.

"A simple brush-up run on a... disrespectful subordinate of mine. I need him gone, but I need his data intact. I can provide a short-term cover for the job. You get it done, I help you disappear. Deal?"

I don't hesitate. "Deal."

"Then you gonna need a handle. You go 'round introducin' yo'self as Victoria Chase, CEO of ChaseSpace Media, then burnin' your sin ain't gonna be worth drek. Get used to usin' it now, you might not screw up when you join the shadows."

I think for a second. I'm a bitchy decker, so... "Ice."

Chloe snorts. "Wiz."

Nana just shrugs. "Now our biz be done." She waves a hand. "Buzz off, get on with it. Come see me when you done, Ice. Laissez les bon temps rouler!"

Chloe leads me out, and back to Kate's chopshop. Neither of us say a word.

* * *

I almost relax as I walk down the corridor to my room. I stop when I see the open door. They've found me, they've... I blink. "Kate?"

She's standing over my bed, up to the elbows in a gaping stomach wound. Her teeth are clenched, and she's got the same look of concentration she used to have while doodling in Jefferson's class. "Victoria." Her tone, unlike her expression, is utterly casual. We might as well be chatting over soykaf lattes.

"You're in my room."

She snorts, corrects me neatly. " _My_ room. You're here on my sufferance. And this patient needed it more."

"But... where am I supposed to go?" I mutter, plaintively.

"Anywhere but here. I'm busy." Whoever owns the body with the gaping stomach wound groans as a robotic surgery arm smoothly jabs a needle into them.

"But, I..." That same adrift feeling starts to surface again. I know people here but, at the same time, I really really don't. "Where..?"

Kate doesn't look up. "Fine, Victoria. You can go stay in my office for now. I'm busy."

I watch her quietly for a few seconds then, when she doesn't say anything more, I turn and head for her office. I slip into the room and activate my deck, sitting in the room's one chair and opening up a small screen. I pull up the Shadowlands portal and start skimming threads. That'll kill some time.

A few hours and several hastily copied notepad pages worth of data later, there's a knock at the door. After a second, it opens and Max steps inside. "Hoi, Vic."

"Victoria. Never Vic." I immediately retort.

Never Vic. Never again...

She carries on like I never said a word. "Victoria. I heard you're working for Nana now."

I shrug. "On a provisional basis. If I help her, she'll burn my SIN."

Her eyebrows raise. "Burn your SIN? You're really staying?"

I scowl. "Well, it's not like I have a fucking option, do I? Lofwyr took everything."

She tilts her head. "Well, you're welcome to come stay with us, if Kate's kicking you out."

"...us?"

She nods. "Me and Chlo. We've got a place near here. You'd have your own room, too. Well, you would tomorrow." She amends. "You'd have to share it with my drones and Chloe's lab stuff tonight, but we could get them moved in the morning?"

It's weird... She sounds like she's trying to persuade _me_ that this is a good idea. Am I that fucking pathetic that Max Caulfield is taking pity on me? Drek...

But I really don't have any other options... "Okay."

She grins. "Shiny. I've got a few things to do, but you can tag along if you wanna come check out the place today?"

No other options... I pack away my deck and stand. "Okay."

Her grin grows. "Okay then. Come on, let's buzz. We're heading to see Buster first." She hesitates. "Just... try not to talk a lot. You'll be made as a suit in a second flat."

"Hey!" I protest. "I can talk streetslang."

She eyes me dubiously. Bitch.

Buster turned out to be a neat-looking ork in the middle of a yard full of weaponry. He's dressed incredibly well for this neighbourhood, all straight lines and military precision. The only things compromising his neatness are the uneven tusks protruding from his mouth and the cybernetic right arm; one obvious enough to be noticeable, but not so obvious as to ruin the line of his suit.

Max walks over and stands patiently, waiting as he deals with two tall, lithe elves in ugly green leather jackets with a circled A emblazoned on the back. He speaks softly, thoughtfully, and talks to them almost exclusively in numbers: calibres, ranges, rounds per second, arc of fire, razoring factor, tensile strength and, of course, price.

My Sperethiel is a little weak, but I manage to understand most of their conversation. The two elves were part of the Ancients, a nation-wide Elf-Centric go-gang. They were organising the payment for a weapon shipment. Or organising the shipment of a weapon payment.

Sperethiel was weird. Endless subtleties upon subtleties made the language a nightmare. Either way, Ancient Biz wasn't mine. We stayed quiet and out of the way until the two elves laugh, shake Buster's hand, then leave.

Max walks over. "Hoi, Buster!"

"Mad Max!"

The ork grins, and the two do some complicated handshake that lasts for almost a minute before laughing. "I've got someone I want you to meet." Max turns to me, gestures. "This is Ice."

I give the ork a curt nod. "Hoi, chummer."

Max rolls her eyes, and one of Buster's eyebrows shoots up. "Nana's letting a suit stay here?"

I eye him, then Max, who just shrugs. "Sorry, Buster. You know I can't talk about Nana's biz. But she's with me." Her expression practically screams "I told you so."

He tilts his head, then looks me over. He nods. "Any friend of Max's is a friend of mine. Bunker Buster Gruberman, at your service. I also answer to Sergeant, Sir, and even Theodor on occasion. Anytime you're in the market for firearms, ammunition, or ordinance, I'm your man."

I nod back. "You're the gun guy."

He grins. "I'm the gun guy."

Max coughs. "Sorry to rush you, Buster, but I've got a lot to do today. You got Nana's shipment?"

Buster nods. "Came in last night. Usual drop off?"

"Yep. I've got your payment here." She reaches out and they shake hands again. The movement disguises Max's credstick slotting into a reader at Buster's wrist.

There's a pause, then a quiet bing sound that marks a succesful transfer of nuyen. "A pleasure doing business with you."

Max grins. "Isn't it always, Buster?"

He rolls his eyes. "You have any other biz to discuss?" He turns his head to meet my gaze. "Maybe Ms Ice needs a gun?"

If I'm getting into running, maybe I do. I've never fired one before in my life though. Where do I even start? "What..?"

Max interrupts. "Do you have any of the Ares pistol stock left?"

The ork pulls up a viewscreen. "Just a couple of the 70s. Sold my last batch of 75s this morning."

Max nods, and mutters a stream of rapidfire gun jargon I barely catch then asks "How much?"

Buster does some quick calculations, then "1100 nuyen."

"Done." They don't bother with the handshake this time, Max just slots her credstick. After a second, the reader beeps.

Buster taps a few things on his screen and, after it emits a loud beep, a small arachnoid drone skitters out of one of the smaller buildings built into the outer wall of Buster's yard. It stops a little short of us, mimics the beep from Buster's screen, then deposits a small box on the ground in front of me.

When I look up, Buster motions to the box. "Enjoy your purchase, Ms Ice."

I pick it up, open it, and take out the gun. Max immediately snatches it from my hand. "I'll be taking that."

When I protest, she glares up at me. "You have no idea how to use that. Trust me, omae. You'll blow your head off."

I sigh, mentally promising to punish her for that later, then nod. "Fine." I turn back to the ork. "It was nice meeting you, Buster."

He nods. "Likewise, ma'am."

Back to Max. "Where to next?"

"The University."

I blink. "You have a university here?"

She snorts. "Frag, no. SU's only open to the corp kids. It's a local nickname for the talismonger's place. He's ex-corp, with a crapload of degrees, and won't let anyone forget it."

I match her snort with one of my own. I'd known a few people like that. Drek, I used to be one of them.

The Talismonger lived in a largish wooden building set-up against a factory wall. It shook slightly with every loud noise from the machinery inside the factory. I, uh... wasn't happy to be going inside. "Uh..."

Max laughs. "I know, I know. But it's sturdier than it looks."

I eye the structure, dubious, but I stay quiet.

She leads me up to the door, knocking on it in a repeated pattern. 1-3, 1-3, 2-2, 1. After three cycles through, the door creaked open and a vaguely-nasal voice asked "What can the master of mysteries do for you this evening, Bastard's servant?"

I lean in. "Bastard servant?"

"Nana's full handle is Nana Bastard."

I blink. Oh.

Max walks in to the room and, after a second's hesitation, I follow. The first thing I notice is that the room inside didn't shake at all. The second thing was that it wasn't made of the same wood as the outside.

One wall is dominated by a lit fireplace, crackling lightly and filling the room with a pleasant wooden scent. The other three are filled with bulging bookshelves, none of which had any evident order to them. Ancient leather-bound tomes mixed freely with late 20th century paperbacks, scattered with occasional plastic-encased electronic readers.

It was a mess, but a very, very expensive one.

In the middle of the room, sat on top of a slightly raised dais, was a large mahogany desk, covered with papers and tomes. A tall, lithe, and very bald human sat at it, watching as Max crossed the room to stand in front of him.

He didn't even look at me.

"Ms Caulfield. I ask again, what is your business here?"

Max bowed. "Nana was wondering if her request had been fulfilled."

The man shook his head. "These things cannot be rushed. Manipulating the metaplanes in this way is dangerous, rushing could be fatal, even for me."

As Max opens her mouth to say something, he holds up a hand. "Fear not, servant of the Bastard, your employer will have her purchase within the week."

As I'm wondering faintly what Nana purchased, he turns to me. "You must be our newest arrival, Ms Ice. It's a pleasure to meet a fellow educated individual in this backwood."

I blink. I was honestly surprised a Thaumaturgist would recognise a journalism (work) and photography (What? A workaholic media heiress can't have a hobby?) graduate as a peer, but I guess he didn't have much to work with out here.

Max quickly motioned for me to bow, so I did. I didn't know when I started to trust the little hipster, but here we were. The old mannerisms of high society quickly reasserted themselves. "The pleasure is mine, sir."

He smiled. "Call me Archibald. I see you aren't one of the gifted?"

I shake my head. "I know enough to keep myself protected, but I'm not a magic user myself, no."

His smile turns almost pitying. Asshole. "Ah. Wisdom and beauty, a rare combination indeed."

I resist the urge to grimace, instead smiling back, pleasant and business-like. "Thank you, Archibald. Rarer still to meet someone with good manners."

He laughs at that. "So true." I feel mildly nauseated, talking with this guy. Such a fucking asshole. I turn back to Max. "Shouldn't we be leaving Archibald to his very pressing business? I'm sure he doesn't want us taking up too much of his time."

Archibald tries to interject a protest, but Max speaks before he can. "Oh drek, you're right." She bows to Archibald, "My apologies for tarrying too long, thank you for your time." and we scurry out the door.

As it swings shut behind us, she turns to me and grins. "Smooth, Chase."

I glare, but can't stop myself from grinning back. "Bite me, hipster."

"Aww, is the media heiress getting cranky? Don't worry, just one more stop and then we'll get you to bed."

She strides off down an alley, ignoring me as I skitter after her (How the hell am I being outpaced by a freaking _dwarf?_ ) yelling "-What? Where are we going?"

After the mage's home, the next place she shows me is kind of a disappointment. We stand on the sidewalk, looking up at a dilapidated cylindrical tower-structure that, at around nine floors tall, looms over both of us. I turn my head. "What's this place?"

Max doesn't answer, instead walking forward to the door. A tall, suited troll stops her from entering. "You ain't on the list." He drawls.

Max smirks. "Check again. Under Bastard."

He doesn't even blink. "You ain't Nana."

"No, but I am on her biz. You wanna stop me, you're going to have to take it up with her."

They both glare at each other, like David and Goliath. A minute passes, then another, and they both crack up in smiles. "You go right in, Max. Give the old lady my regards."

Max clasps his hand in hers. "Thanks, Cerb. Will do."

As we walk past, I hiss "What the frakk was that?" I seem to be asking that a lot today. Can you really blame me? It's been kind of fucking weird.

She shrugs. "Just a bit of fun. Cerb likes to play guard dog, and it's null sweat to let him."

"Cerb? What kind of a name is Cerb?"

Max smiles. "An appropriate one." She pushes open the large set of ornate double doors, sitting under a large, switched-off neon sign reading 'Abandon all hope, ye who enter here'. "Welcome to Inferno."

The club was lit with red lights, with walls covered in gaudy satanic iconography. Dancing devils were framed by burning sconces, pentagram rugs were scattered around red velvet couches along all the walls.

It was... pardon the pun, tacky as hell.

The ceiling above and the floor below me were both made out of transparex, allowing me to see at least seven levels above, and two below. Ramps wound along the outer walls, and a massive spiral staircase speared up through the open shaft in the centre of the building.

The club was almost empty, but I knew it would be full of people later. Most Seattle clubs ended up packed, even this early in the night. The only people in here now were a trio hanging by the bar: a male ork, a female human, and a female dwarf.

Max walked over. "Hoi, Chummers!"

The three nodded, shook Max's hand, all the while staring at me. When the pleasantries had been seen to, the dwarf growled "Who's the suit?"

"Ice."

They blinked at my short, curt tone. I figured, if talking gave me away as a corporate suit, I simply wouldn't.

Max chips in "She's Nana's new hire. I'm just showing her the sights."

The Ork nods, grinning at me. "Right on, sister. I'm Trev."

The human and the dwarf introduce themselves as Cherry and Morgause respectively. "Is Dante around? Nana needs a favour."

Cherry nods towards another set of double doors. "In the back."

Max nods, and starts walking to the doors. I make to follow her, but Morgause stops me. "Ah-ah." She admonishes. "Max might vouch for you, but we don't know you. You stay out here."

"Uh, Max?"

Max shrugs. "Their house, their rules, Ice. Don't worry, I won't be too long."

I nod and, after a pause to pull myself together, take a seat on one of the barstools. Cherry almost immediately takes the next stool. Of course. Time to chat. "So, Ice..."

I give her a placid look. "Yes?"

She bats her eyelids, smiles. "You're new in town, right cutie?"

I nod. "Yes." There's no problem admitting that, right? Plenty of people move to Seattle.

"Wiz. Well, if you ever want the nickel tour, just let me know. I'm an ace guide."

I nod again. "Thanks."

She frowns, a little sullen that I'm being so monosyllabic. I feel a little pang of guilt, but not enough to drop the charade. These people were criminals. Any one of them would sell me out to Lofwyr without a second thought.

"So," Morgause starts. "What's your speciality?"

I tilt my head, stare silently, and wait for clarification. She quickly fills the silence. "You've got a 'jack, so y'know, you've gotta be a decker or a rigger.., right? You're not built enough for a blade, and you ain't got enough 'ware for a so..."

"Decker." I cut her babble off, before it can get any worse.

She nods, smiles. "Wiz. Hope you're good. Our last deckjockey got flatlined a few years back going up against some rich bitch's ICE wall. The new crew could frag up a drek run."

I shrug. "I guess we'll see."

She grins. "Guess we will."

The girl goes mercifully quiet, and we sit in silence until Max walks back in. She doesn't stop to chat, muttering goodbyes as she walks past the group. I immediately hop up and follow her out. She nods to the guard dog on the door, and we head out into the streets.

"That's everything done, Ice. You still want that room?"

I shrug. "It's not like I have any better options."

She laughs. "I guess that's true. Come on then. You'd better hope we beat Chloe back, or she'll have eaten all the food before we're even halfway there."

* * *

 **Shadowrun Glossary:**

Drek - Shit

Tir Tairngire - At this point, it's an Elf-Supremacist Dictatorship set-up in Oregon and Washington state. Pretty unpleasant place to live, if you're not an elf.

Elf - Pointy ears, long-lived, you know the type.

Prince's Seal - Tir Tairngire gives these out to corporations they like so that they can operate in their territory without being piled under crippling restrictions and tariffs.

Bitty Box - A shitty computer.

Decker - The Shadowrun term for a Hacker. Uses a special new type of computer called a deck to hack computers through the Matrix.

Geeked - Killed

Omae - Japanese term for friend. Kind of a weird one, because in reality it's more of a passive-aggressive formal version in the vein of "Hey buddy, back off, would ya?" but Shadowrun characters use it in a more friendly tone.

Datajack - An implanted piece of tech that works with a Deck to allow Deckers to enter the Matrix.

Matrix - The Matrix is a VR simulation of the world-wide computer network.

Sim - Simulation

ICE - Intrusion Countermeasures, security software designed to keep Deckers out of your computers.

Biofeedback - Affects Deckers who go up against certain ICE. Strips away parts of the brain, causing severe physical and mental issues and usually death.

Shadowrunners - Specialists who work for basically whoever wishes to hire them to do very illegal things, often corporate sabotage/espionage. They're the main focus of the game.

Fragging - Killing, Fucking.

Wetwork - Assassination

Bronze - The Cops, from the Bronze Badges

Heatwave - A police crackdown

So Ka - Japanese-ish for Understand/Understood?

Wiz - Short for Wizard. Means Good.

Troll - The largest metatype, they average about 9ft tall, and are hella bulky. They also have horns (a la Qunari) and some odd natural armour spine-wart things (calcified dermal deposits). This metatype tends to be the biggest focus of racial targeting.

Cyberware - Implanted augmentation hardware, like gun-arms, or brain-implanted computers.

Frak - Fuck

Docwagon - A corporation that specialises in entering high risk environments to provide on-scene medical care. Think Doctors without Borders, but with Tanks and Machineguns.

Nuyen - New-Yen, the new world standard currency.

Chopshop - An illegal medical establishment

Sawbones - An unlicensed doctor who works in a chopshop

Black Clinic - An illegal medical establishment

Awakened - Gaining magical powers or becoming a meta-human (Elf, Dwarf, Troll, or Ork)

Spirit - Shadowrun has a lot of these things. They're sentient organisms that live on alternate planes/dimensions (called the metaplanes) and tend to cause a lot of havoc when they come over into ours. They're also what magic users use to make magical things happen.

Rituals - Things Shamans use to summon/utilise spirits

Shaman - A magic user who works with nature spirits

The Wall - Think the Berlin Wall, but hole-ier. Built around Portland by the Tir Tairngire government.

Ace - Expert

Fixer - A go-between, deal-maker, and information broker who sells their services. Usually to Shadowrunners.

Tridmonger - A news/media-person. 'Trid' is the three-dimensional successor to video, either in hologram or VR simulation.

Null Sheen - No sweat. Either something easier, or don't bother yourself about it.

Drones - High-tech robot things with guns, controlled by a class called a Rigger.

Dwarf - Short, tough, bearded. Generally the most well-treated of the metatypes, due to their physical similarity to humans and general usefulness.

Ork - Bulkier, slightly larger humans with tusks. Tend to only live 40 years and, due to the presence of more than a dash of racism in the Shadowrun world, are regarded as kinda dumb. Enough of 'em actually are to keep the stereotype alive and well to this day (2070-something, IIRC)

SIN - System Identification Number, all regular citizens have them.

Wyrm - Dragon

Scratch - Money

Chummer - Friend

Suit - Someone who works for a corporation

Grunger - Racist term for an Ork

Yaks - Short form of Yakuza, like the Japanese gang.

Made - An official member of the Mafia

Bioware - Implanted augmentation based on biological methods instead of hardware, eg. Genetic modification or biografts

Wageslave - Someone who works for a corporation, generally on the lower rungs of the hierarchy

Dusting - Killing.

SINner - Someone with a SIN, an honest citizen.

Biz - Business

Burned - Destroyed and Abandoned

Sha - New Orleans Slang for friends (Chere)

Handle - A chosen identifier.

Laissez les bon temps rouler! - New Orleans Slang for 'Let the Good Times Roll!". Also the name of a hella good jazz swing song.

Soykaf - Hella shitty coffee that the world of Shadowrun is stuck with

Shadowlands - An online forum for shadowrunners to hang around in and get information from.

Hoi - Hi

Buzz - To go, as in 'lets buzz'

Streetslang - Bullshit language spoken on the streets

Sperethiel - Elven Language, very odd.

Ancients - An Elf Gang, one of the largest gangs in North America.

Corp - Corporation/Corporate etc.

Talismonger - Someone who sells magic gewgaws.

Aces - Awesome

Deckjockey - A real good decker.

Flatlined - Killed by Intrusion Countermeasure Programs in the Matrix.


	2. Joining an Empire of Crime

Chapter II: Joining an Empire of Crime

* * *

AN:

Hey there, Fan-fic-folks!

I don't actually have anything to say here. Other than the fact that this took a while.

Thanks for reading and, as always, please review

* * *

I wake up in unfamiliar darkness.

For a moment, my heart jumps in my chest as I try to figure out where I am, and then I remember.

Mostly because of the machine-gun rotary-barrel around 2 inches above my head. Max's damned drones had been poking me in the side all night. Where the hell did she even come across this shit? The finer points of mechanical engineering aren't exactly the sort of thing an avowed loner hipster nerd picks up overnight.

I roll over on the sleeping pallet (clearly taken from a coffin hotel, by the way, not that beggars could be choosers), and tap on my deck to bring up the time. Six thirty. Good to know. At least my sleeping schedule has lasted through the hell of the last couple of days.

It's a small thing, but at least it's something. I've spent the last two days mostly feeling adrift, alone. I want to feel like I belong again. I want to feel I have some damn control over my life. So, the small things will have to do until I can make the big things happen. And you can be damn sure, I'll make it all happen eventually. I got it all through hard work and hard decisions once, so I can do it again.

I open the door to my room and walk into the main living space. It's technically open plan, though only because the divider walls are so old and worn that they've mostly fallen down. It looks different in the morning light; the large bay windows lining every wall of the warehouse-turned-penthouse apartment let in light from every angle, except for over in one corner opposite the doors that has cardboard taped over the windows to create a dark spot with absolutely no light.

Max is sitting there, in the dark, staring at me.

She's not actually staring at me. Her eyes are that odd shiny texture one gets when one 'jacks in', meaning her mind is off floating about in a drone somewhere. Or maybe gliding through the Matrix. Either way, she was checked out and Chloe was nowhere to be seen.

I tried to wait, but I was hungry and everything in here was hidden away in side-lockers and drop-boxes and thus totally frakking inaccessible without keycodes. So, I stalked up to Max's prone form and, with a scowl at her blank face, pulled out my deck and started hunting.

I found the drone a short distance away. The ICE was child's play (for Ice... Ew. No. I need to keep working on that catchphrase, fucking hell.) and I was in after barely a minute of work. Huh. Apparently the thing had a camera. Max must've been using the drone to look at something... I piggybacked a carrier on the signal and brought the feed up on my screen.

I was immediately inflicted by the sight of a naked troll girl with neon-blue hair writhing beneath me and I shut my damn eyes just as immediately.

Fucking gah!

I slam my hand down on the key to close that Pandora's Box of horrors. My disgusted shuddering was interrupted by a light, rippling, familiar laugh that made me snap my eyes open.

Max's eyes were back to their usual dull hipster sheen and she was fucking _laughing_ at me. That... that bitch! After a few irritating seconds, her laughs die down into muted chuckles and she just shakes her head at me. "You really shouldn't go prying into other people's heads, you know."

I jab a finger at her. "And you shouldn't be doing... _that_ in a public space! That's just-"

"Hot?" A voice comes from behind me, accompanied by the low swipe of an opening security door as Chloe joins us. She's clothed, thank fuck, but I get an awkward flash of... what I just saw that causes me to flinch and my stomach to turn.

"No, I just-"

Chloe stalks over. "What were you even doing, dude? Why the frakk would you try that drek?"

I shake my head another few times to clear that... image, and just shrug. "I needed food. She was busy. Figured I'd find the passcode in her head and get it myself."

"Yeah, well. Don't do that again." She glares at me expectantly. "Stay outta our heads, so ka?"

I nod. "So ka."

"Wiz." All animosity suddenly disappears as she grins, flashing me her tusks. "What's for breakfast? I need a soykaf."

"Make it quick." Max waves a chrono and taps it. "It's nearly seven and Nana wants to see us at eight."

I stay quiet as the two cheerfully banter and flirt their way through making breakfast, only speaking up when they asked a direct question. I honestly wasn't sure what I was feeling listening to them. Most of my meals were taken alone or over business with colleagues, so they always had an air of... formality to them. Chloe and Max, on the other hand, couldn't be less informal. They joked, they laughed, they... flirted. It was all so... unfamiliar.

I think it might've been nice. I certainly never had anything like that with my... partner, before he...

I sigh, and stand suddenly from the table. "Shouldn't we be going?"

Chloe froze, spoon halfway to her mouth. "Huh?"

"It's a fifteen minute walk to Nana's house and it's just turning twenty to the hour. Don't you think she'd appreciate us being early?" I tilt my head imploringly. "Nana's already not a fan of mine, I need every edge I'm going to get to convince her to let me stay."

Max chuckled at Chloe's... lack of enthusiasm, but stood anyway. "She's right, Chlo'. Let's buzz."

Chloe groaned and dropped the spoon. A few moments had all the dishes cleared away and a few more had all of us packed to leave. Max still wouldn't give me the damn gun, even when I asked nicely. I was tempted for a moment to try intimidating her, but I quickly dismissed that idea. It probably wouldn't work anymore, plus Chloe would probably kill me without a second thought if she thought I was going to hurt her girlfriend. So once again, I stayed quiet. I suppose it might be a good habit to get into. I don't have to talk and reveal myself as a suit and it also made a decent personality quirk for someone named 'Ice'. I'd met enough Shadowrunners to know streetnames often linked to personality traits, so giving into their expectations might help me blend.

It was worth a try.

* * *

As planned, we arrive at the quaint little house with time to spare. Chloe, unwilling to wait, strode up to the door and knocked. The same psychedelically-haired troll answered the door. "You're early."

Chloe flashed him a bright, toothy grin. "Figured Nana would appreciate the punctuality for once. We can wait, just wanted to check and make sure Nana knew we were here."

He flashed her an equally bright, patronising look. "Of course she knows you're here, chummer."

"So..." Chloe offers an olive branch of expectancy. My shock at her mature response was sorely tempered by the immature tone. "Can we come in?"

"What do you think?"

"No?" She tries.

He snorts. "Smart one, ace."

So, we wait. And wait. And wait.

Eventually, the door opens, and Bolan steps out. He grins, wide and toothy. "Now you can come in."

* * *

"Hoi, Ice."

I tilt my head at a very respectful incline. Everyone in this room would happily kill me if this woman ordered it. Again, respect was in my best interest. "Hello, Nana." I drew the rules of behaviour and etiquette, all the distant refinement and polite poise my parents had spent my childhood instilling within me together and cloaked myself in it. I had to be Ice, if I was going to survive. And I was going to survive.

The woman eyed me for a few seconds, then nodded. "Your job is there, and we's ready to get that SIN of yours gone whenever you finish." She tossed a small datastick to me. "The associate in question is out in Puyallup. He's been skimmin' scratch that he owe to me. When I found out, I sen' a man to remind him who he fucking works for. My man didn't return, sha. So, I need you to go in, geek him, an' take any data you can find. If you can recover any o' the moneys he took, then you'll get a cut of it. Call it fifteen percent." She grins another knife-wound smiles. "I'm feelin' gen'rous today."

I keep my face implacable, but inside I'm panicking. "...just me, Nana?"

She chuckles. "Nah, sha. You may be an 'ace decker', but you sure as hell don't know how to kill folks. Take Max and Chloe wit' you. They be the muscle, you be the brains." She tilts her head to focus on them instead of me. "She's in charge until she does somethin' stupid that's gon' get you killed. So ka?"

They both nod. "So ka, Nana."

They're agreeing to this? To following me? Are they insane?

I start paying attention to the conversation again just in time to see Nana throw Max a datastick. "-an' by the time you come back, your SIN'll be gone. Now, get out. You has a job to do."

* * *

The tramcar was obnoxiously quiet. Well, more accurately, the people inside it were quiet. The actual car was screeching like my mother after she found out my 'beloved husband' had gone missing. And believe me, that screech was _loud._

There were very few people on the tram this early. The few that were gave us a wide berth. One woman, out with her daughter, was giving Chloe (who towered head and shoulders and upper chest above everyone else in the cab) the most obnoxiously nervous side-eye I'd seen in a while. It was fucking infuriating. Racist bitch. Though admittedly it could've also been the obnoxiously large shotgun Chloe had hefted over one shoulder. Wait no, not Chloe. Blue. I'm supposed to call her Blue on missions. Damnit.

None of us spoke. If we had, I wasn't sure what I'd even say. How do you give orders to two childhood nemeses to do something you've never done before that could get any of you killed or arrested at a moments notice? It's one hell of a dilemma and, as the tramcar slowed to a stop and Max and Chloe step up to the doors, I realised that I had very little time to solve it.

I trailed them out, narrowly skirting being locked back on the tram by the closing doors. I barely registered my near-escape, honestly too distracted to notice. My mind was busy running through possible outcomes of my leading today's venture, most of which involved inevitable and painful death. Perhaps understandably, my confidence was very low when Chloe's hand stopped me walking past the door to the slum building our target was supposedly inhabiting.

"So, Boss. What's the biz for this run?" Her irritating, fang-bearingly wide grin earns her my sharpest glare.

The fragging bitch shrugged it off with a chuckle and an expectant raise of an eyebrow. At that point, I was half tempted to punch her. One look at the thick muscle in her arms made me reconsider that course of action very quickly. I liked my facial features how they were. So, I took a look at the building. It looked old, but most slum buildings did. I peered across the brickwork, the layers of gang tags and almost pornographic grafitti covering its surface, trying to come up with some semblance of an idea that might... wait. I frown, eyeing one of the windows. Buried under the 'artwork' was the edge of a poster. Well, a label, technically. Maybe even an advertisement. All I could see was the top left corner of a very, very familiar logo. "The building is secured."

Max frowned. "What? Of course it is, Ice. Our Boss doesn't just-"

I waft a hand at her to shut up. Surprisingly, she does. "No, that's not what I mean. Look," I point to the poster. "That's an Intellicorp logo. We did a piece on them before they shut down. Their security was severely lacking." I pause for a moment, then issue my orders. "Check the outer walls of the building for any small circular panels." I hold out my hand, putting the tip of my thumb and ring finger together. "They should be about this big and somewhere near the ground."

Max and Chloe share a... sceptical look and another hurried conversation-without-words before doing as I say. I find a spot as out of the way as I can manage and open up my deck. It takes barely a moment before I have everything ChaseSpace Media wrote about Intellicorp and I spend the next few moments re-familiarising myself with the details. Mostly the truly incredible number of weaknesses in their systems. They even left a hard-line Matrix plug in the outer walls - the small circular panel I had Chloe and Max looking for - under a flimsy-as-fuck maintenance seal. Some idiot in management probably thought it was a great cost saving measure. Nearly every customer they ever had fell victim to some crime or another. Mostly theft, obviously. I could break through that protection by sneezing. And lucky for me, the system hardware was so difficult to remove once installed that most of the companies simply co-opted them and filled in the vulnerabilities or disconnected it as best it they could. They were idiots too.

Heh. This might actually be fun.

I stow my deck away and wait for Chloe and Max return. The dwarf got back first, shaking her head. "Nothing, Ice. There was a firedoor round the back though, but it was locked."

I nod. "Lets hope your girlfriend found something then."

I let out a relieved sigh when Chloe finally returned. My foot had been tapping impatiently the entire time and it was starting to hurt. "Well?" I demand, unintentionally.

Chloe flashed me a mildly irritable look and held it until I realised what I'd done and politely repeated the question in a slightly less bitchy tone. Only slightly, though. It was still Chloe. "Well?"

She chuckled and grinned. "Found your hole. It's in the alley over there."

I rolled my eyes at the fucking childish eyebrow waggle she tacked onto the end and strode past her. The alley is yet another typical example of slum artistry. Both the wall of Nana's associate's building and the one opposite were covered in just as much graffiti as the front, perhaps even more. I find myself studying some of it with what approaches actual interest, surprisingly. The large blue bird hologram fluttering over the wall, drawn around the windows as its eyes, was... striking.

My interest died a swift death as the animation defecated on the ground. I scowled at it and headed to where Chloe pointed out the access port. A few seconds of work later and I'm in. One full floor map, camera and door access, and a brief and utterly useless maintenance doc file... downloaded. I also froze the internal camera displays to run a short loop, redirecting the actual feed to my deck. What the hell, I'll get the door locks as well. I unplug from the port less than three minutes after I plugged in.

Max appeared at my left, Chloe at my right. "So, what now, Boss?"

"Now?" I grin. "Now we kick in the doors."

* * *

"I didn't mean it literally, damnit!"

Chloe gave me a sheepish look as the left firedoor, now barely hanging onto the wall by only the upper wall mount, swung once, then twice, then fell to the ground with an annoyingly loud, annoyingly long-lasting crash. "Woops."

I stalked past her into the building, raising my handgun that Max had finally seen fit to let me use and muttering under my breath as I go. "Well, there goes our frakking stealth! Why am I always saddled with klutzy, idiotic-"

Chloe just chuckled and followed me in. Max, though, paused for a second and swung the backpack off her shoulder onto the ground. After a few seconds the pack was back on her shoulders and we're accompanied by three moderately sized drones with moderately sized guns. We trail along through the uncomfortably empty first floor and stop at the bottom of the stairs.

A thought occurred. "How heavy are those drones?"

Max gave me a puzzled look and shrugged. "Few kilograms. Why?"

I look at her. Then the stairs. Then the drones. Then back to her. She smirks, and taps a button on her own deck. Suddenly, the damn things sprout wings. Well, not quite wings. They look like the giant fans on the side of some of what used to be my staff airbuses. I really miss those things. The only way to get two dozen staff across multiple subsidiaries back to headquarters for meetings. Disorganised pricks.

I let the drones go first. There's a brief crack of gunfire as they clear the second floor stairwell of guards and we follow them up. I have to swallow a rising tide of nausea at the sight. Those moderately sized guns caused far more than moderate damage. A little shiver passes down my back as I hastily look away from the limb reaching out to clutch at my ankle. Normally, that would be fine, but the body said limb belonged to was pasted against one wall.

The stairs up to the third floor were blocked by piles of random household things. "Damnit." A quick search on the map reveals there's a secondary stair on the other side of this floor. Unfortunately, a quick search on the cameras shows it's guarded. I smile when I see exactly what it's guarded by.

We hurry past the broken bodies and discarded detritus and head into the main lobby of the second floor. Unlike the first, this one is populated. The people around all have the characteristic twitching of BTL Junkies and the worn complexions of a brutal life; The aptly named 'Better than Life' chips let poor nobodies disappear into dreams that, for them, are better than their sad, inescapable reality. Some of these people are uncomfortably young.

We keep our eyes low and head through. Max nods to the one cognisant individual here, a tall elf wearing headphones that I presume is the operator of this place. He absently nods back and we disappear out the next door.

The next few rooms were unfit to house pigs, never mind human beings. The walls were as covered with graffiti and random dirt spots as the ones outside, and the floors were littered with... effluent. My internal interior-designer almost screamed in agony seeing the state of it. The people there were just as heartrending to look at. Downtrodden expressions on the faces of those who'd escaped into apathy and vacant glassy stares on the faces of those who'd escaped into their heads. Chloe had to almost pick me up to get me to move onward. When we were through and alone again, I turn to them. "That was horrible."

Chloe shrugs, but the look Max gives me is almost compassionate. "You've never seen anything like that before, have you?"

"No," I almost spit the word out. "No, I haven't. I mean... we covered BTL dens, but we never saw anything like this."

Chloe chuckles. "You never do, suit. Might as well be on frakking fairyland for all the reality you corp dogs see. You're always jandering around, nose in the air, up in your ivory frakking towers, never seeing any of the drek us commoners go through." Her chuckle turns dark. "Always missin' the know on anyone not 'important'." Her last remark was surprisingly bitter.

Max hushes her and steps forward, putting a hand on my shoulder. "You're landing hot in a situation you've never been in before. It's only natural to be uncomfortable with it. Do you need a minute?"

I shake my head. "No. I'm going to see worse doing this, so I'll get used to it."

Max almost beams. It's a little freaky in its intensity. "Wicked. Let's buzz. Not far to go now."

We head out of the BTL den and into more regular accomodation. It's a relief to be in somewhere passably civilized. I watched mutely as a human man gets launched through a plaster divider wall in front of us, then dragged through into another room by a large troll. The other two don't even blink. Okay, scratch the 'passably civilised' comment.

Max stopped at the stairs up to the final floor. "We're here. Last chance to back out, Ice."

I shake my head. I've gone too far to start questioning things now. "I'll do whatever I have to to get my company back."

Chloe grins. "Good choice, omae. Let's go frag these fuckers already. Drinks on Maxie when we get back."

I let them lead the way as we head upstairs. I'm confident and without other options, not insane.

* * *

The security door fizzed as we walked up to it. I just tapped a key and it slid open instantly. Man, I don't think anyone has ever been more grateful to encounter the shitty Intellicom system than I was right then.

A corridor stretched ahead of us, two doors set in even intervals along both walls, then another larger door sat at the opposite end. It was quiet. Max sent the four drones down the hall, positioning two at each of the first two doors. Max and I went to the left, Chloe took the right. At Max's count, I opened the doors and she sent the drones in. Our side stayed quiet, but two loud cracks of bulletfire from Chloe's side let us know contact had been made. We paused and waited, keeping our guns lined on the other two doors. A couple of minutes and no action meant nobody would be coming out, according to Max. When I pointed out that just meant they were probably waiting in there for us, Max just grinned.

Crazy little bitch.

We both went into the rooms and took a quick look around for anything interesting. Nana wanted data, after all. The room Max and I took was small storage. Lots of basic shelving filled with all manner of miscellaneous goods and supplies. I imagined... yep. Drug paraphernalia, too. I poke into a few more boxes. Nothing interesting or worth anything.

"Ice!" Chloe called from the other room. "Get in here and hack this shit!"

I rolled my eyes. Demanding bitch and her- I pause and take a moment to yell back. "What shit?"

"Fucked if I know! It's got sockets and a screen, so it's either a computer or the weirdest fragging sex toy!"

I grimace as another flash of that mornings events pops into my head before I can lock it back in the deepest darkest recesses of my brain. I do wish there was some kind of mental napalm I could use to burn that particular memory from my mind. It's the only way to be sure.

Still. If she's found something interesting, I suppose I had better go check it out. I leave Max poking through the storage and head into Chloe's side. I find her playing with some kind of fleshy looking thing and laughing to herself.

I shake my head and ignore it. "Where's the computer?"

Chloe waves vaguely to a set-up in the corner. I sigh. "That's a cd player, Blue."

She looks at me. "It is? Ah shit." She shrugs. "Nevermind then." She tosses the fleshy thing over her shoulder. "And fragg this. Let's buzz to the next rooms already."

I follow her out and we burst in, finding both rooms clear of people. There was, however, a very interesting set-up that I actually had to work to break through. I filtered through a few bits of information and determined it was definitely something Nana would want. Honestly, I wasn't sure what it was, but Max patted my shoulder and said "Nice work, Nana will be happy with that find." so I'm making an educated assumption. A natural born Shadowrunner, I am not.

We met up back in the corridor, and eyed the last door. "Just one more left, huh? Think he's in there?"

I shrug. "There are no cameras in there, so I couldn't tell you."

Chloe resists the urge to comment and takes her post at the left of the door. Max takes the right and I go behind her. I bring up the program on my deck that had control of the building's subsystems and tap to open the door.

It... doesn't.

"Problem?"

"The door isn't opening."

"I can see that, Ice. Why isn't it opening?"

I tap a few keys. "...because it's not tied into the other systems. It looks like it's operating on its own grid here on the upper level. I'll have it open in a moment." My fingers fly across the keys as I practically soar through encryption. They didn't even bother with a Matrix security net? It's like they wanted me to break in!

Unfortunately, I was a little too impressed with my own brilliance and forgot to warn them before I opened the door. It slid open as Max was leaning forward in full view of the people inside. They promptly decided she was a threat and, since they were criminals and their response was to shoot threats, they, uh... shot at her. It was only Chloe's quick reflexes that saved the girl from being torn to shreds by the sheer amount of lead and steel they were throwing at her.

Max... honestly didn't seem all that upset about being shot at. I think it was a Shadowrunner thing, because I was terrified and I wasn't even the one under fire!

She took a second to breathe, then laughed, pulling herself up to lean against the wall. "That was bracing." She quickly poked her head out, dodging back again after another blast of what I was mostly certain was machine gun fire nearly hit her. She grinned at me. Lunatic. "Seven of them, two to each side, two behind metal pillars in the middle of the room, and one behind an automated turret emplacement at the back."

I perk up. "Automated?"

* * *

"We surrender! Nana wants to talk to you, Manny!" We'd improvised a small white flag - still a recognised symbol to everyone, even now near every nation that'd ever held it as a rule had fallen to corporations - and waved it around in the doorway.

'Manny' called back "Fine. Come on out, throw your guns down." It was odd, he sounded... British, maybe? But there was something off about the accent. Maybe he was from Somerset?

I shrug at Max and mouth "Remember the plan," before walking in.

I toss down my still-unused pistol and, after a moment of hesitation, Chloe and Max follow suit. That's when I get my first good look at the room. It's bigger than I thought it'd be. Bigger than was really possible, given the size of the building. They'd knocked through the back walls somehow, doubling the size of the room. There was a corridor in the middle of the wall off to the right and a recess in the wall to the left. The set-up was half living area, half hacktivist collective. The far wall was dominated by a large screen and smaller workstations were peppered across the room. The guards were still loitering around, guns pointed at us.

Hmm. The angles should be right...

This will work.

"So?" Mandy, a tall elf man in dark leather, crosses his arms and glares impatiently. The turret looms impressively behind him. "What's the old bitch want now?"

I take two steps forward, stopping as one of the guards raises their gun and the small relay in my pocket vibrates. "To tame you, mostly. She's rather unimpressed with your recent changes in loyalty, Manny."

Manny scoffs, and the anger in it sends little shivers down my spine. Maybe this plan wasn't such a good idea... "Then the bitch can go fuck herself. I found new friends now," With that, he waves his arms vaguely at his hirelings. I peer curiously at them. I mean, they were all elves, but surely he couldn't expect these few to help her- Oh. Each one of them had a familiar green A stitched or painted somewhere on their jackets. Shit. "They're Ancients."

Manny grins. "Sure are, chummer. And they're right happy to help protect an angel with arctic info like me. And man, the cred is good. Like, we're talkin' triple what Nana condescended to pay me." He pauses, and his grin turns disturbing. It's too wide, and too pleased with himself. I took it in stride. Honestly, it was far scarier seeing that smile in body language than blatant expression. This was just... small time. "So, now you hosed this drek run up, what was your plan? Were you just going to break in here and shoot us?"

I shrug, trying to sound as casual as I could. "Something like that." Damn it, I should've gotten a signal by now. There has to be something in here interfering with the connection. I... crap. I think I need to get closer. "Actually, we were supposed to introduce this," I pull out the relay after carefully finagling it inside my pocket until it slotted into a standard connector socket and toss it in his direction. He catches it, frowning in confusion at the flashing lights and odd configuration. Come on, come on... "-after we killed you. You might no longer be useful, but this is apparently decent real estate and she needed to give whoever came after the right info to get biz going again." He looks between me and the relay speculatively. I keep my eyes on him, but keep careful attention on the littlest green light right near the socket. Please connect, please. If my plan gets us all killed, Chloe will never let me hear the fucking end of it.

After a tense moment, he tosses it onto a workstation with a shrug. "Well, we'll look through that when you're all dead, I guess. Thanks."

I shrug again. It should be ready any time...

The automated turret suddenly starts firing.

Now, I suppose.

I dive into cover - not from the turret, that was entirely under my control, but from the Ancients. - just as Chloe grabs Max and dashes out of the way. She takes a couple of hits with pained grunts, but makes it out of the room.

I just stayed down and waited for the gunfire to stop.

"Everyone dead in there?"

Chloe somehow manages to sound genuinely interested in the answer to a rhetorical question. I call back anyway. "I'm fine. The Ancients are less fine." The bullets had torn them into tiny pieces. It wasn't pleasant to look at, but after the BTL Den I found I could hold my gaze without the nausea. Still. Work to do, now. "Can you bring my deck in?"

I head over to the workstation that Manny put the relay down on and pick it up, pushing a button to switch off the auto-turret and another to sever the connection between it and my deck back in the corridor. No sense leaving it open for someone else to exploit.

Max appears at my shoulder. "Here." She hands me my deck.

"Thanks." I plug into the system and access it manually, there really wasn't much point going through the Matrix here. The file manager access screen pops up and I start trawling for anything useful. Nana had said Manny was selling data, right? So, she'd have to have some record of what data she sold and the ancient whom she sold it to.

Ah. Here.

"Got it. Let's buzz."

Chloe groans. "Seriously, Ice, you gotta stop talkin' like that. Just sounds hella frakkin' wrong."

* * *

"Well, shah." Nana smiled as the goon behind me nodded affirmatively at the receipt of the information she'd asked for. "Looks like you gon' be wit' us after all. An' Manny will not be betrayin' anyone else anytime soon, I hope?"

I nod. "Never again, Nana."

"Good. Tho' the Ancients bein' involved is somethin' of a problem. We gon' have to deal wit' that sometime soon. Regardless. Your SIN be burned and your new life wit' us be good for our biz, so you be welcome to stay." She wafts a hand aristocratically in our direction. "Now, get out. I be sure Chloe an' Max wan' ta celebrate the win wit' you."

We get the hell out of there.

Chloe slings a companionable arm over my shoulders and grins toothily at me. "So, Ice. Whatcha gonna do now you've survived your first run as a proper Shadowrunner?"

I think for a moment, then... "I'm going to get a drink."

Chloe laughs. "My kinda girl. Let's buzz over to Dante's. Drinks're on Maxie!"

* * *

Jander - Swagger

The Know - information

Landing Hot - Crashing in a broken vehicle

Arctic - Great

Angel - Benefactor

Hosed - Fucked up

Drek Run - Simple Job


	3. Settling in and Settling Debts

Chapter III: Settling in and Settling Debts (POV) - Time

* * *

AN:

Hey there, Fan-fic-folks!

So, I'm not dead - though it did feel like it for a few weeks there. I am now a University Graduate with a Bachelor's Degree in Psychology. Thank fuck that shit's over. Currently looking for a years worth of experience supervised by an accredited clinical psychologist so I can do my Ph.D (which is needed to become a Clinical Psychologist in England). I'm looking to have everything I currently have uploaded plus two more at least at the end of act 2 by the end of that year of experience. The LiS fandom will probably have trickled down to just me and NothingYouCanProve by then, but I promised this shit would be finished and it damn well will be.

Thanks for reading and, as always, please review.

* * *

"It's the Bronze! Take them down!"

Max's drones swooped down to the road and blasted the Lonestar roadblock with everything they had. Bullets riddled the armor plating and tore through it, ripping into whomever was unlucky enough to have been inside the vehicles. Two more appeared from the side alleys, firing at the officers they could spot.

She took the entire thing out in less than fifteen seconds.

Six missions, and the little hipster had only gotten more terrifying with each one. Six successful missions, though. Very, very, successful. Honestly, I don't know why I didn't become a Shadowrunner sooner, it's so amazingly profitable. Actually, I know exactly why I didn't. I ducked under a hail of gunfire and spun around a fucking fireball, moving to crouch behind a nearby wreck. The dead man lying halfway out of the window might not be producing any more blood, but what his enterprising little bones had made before his death was currently leaking everywhere out of the dozen or so fragmentation shrapnel wounds across his body. Unfortunately for me, I only realised this after a half pint had dripped onto my fucking back. "Ew ew ew ew ew!"

That's why: the dry-cleaning bill was a fucking nightmare.

I leapt to my feet with a shudder, putting bullets in the heads of two Lonestar officers before ducking down again, away from the disgusting bleeder. One of the more errant streaks of blood ran down the middle of the Lonestar logo, reminding me oddly of one of the few pre-crash films I'd seen. What was it called? Guardsmen? Sight-men? Watchdogs? Damned if I remember. It's not terribly important, I suppose. I certainly have more pressing issues to attend to.

I fished out my deck and set it to scan for nearby Lonestar installations. There didn't seem to be any, implying this roadblock was intentional for us, rather than something we ran into accidentally. Interesting. They shouldn't've caught onto our robbery. I'd taken down all the alarms Renraku had set-up in their Matrix connection easily. Ironic, really, considering their core business was computer technology. Maybe we'd missed someone who'd called it in?

Either way. This was the situation now. No sense crying over spilled secrets. You just shoot the spy and get on with your life. Or let them rescue you from Shadowrunners, then drag you into the Shadows in turn to get revenge. That works too.

The road suddenly goes silent. It's a stark change from the rails of bullets that'd been roaring over the area moments before. I carefully get to my feet and look around me. Six destroyed vehicles and around two dozen dead cops. I think I might be getting used to this. I still hated the sight of them, and felt horrible that I'd killed, but those feelings were more... distant. Plus, I felt entirely satisfied that I was the one still breathing. Yes. Glad to be alive.

I realised I'd been fingering the wedding ring I had on a string around my neck and quickly forced my hand down to my side. I forced the memories that were starting to appear down even more forcefully.

A large, toothy troll grin appears from somewhere in the midst of all the chaos, quickly joined by a dozen drones and a tiny freckled dwarf. "Nice work, Ice. Told you you'd be a fragging great distraction."

"Fuck off, Blue."

She leered. "That's more like it, Ice. Now you're a real runner."

"Fuck off, Blue." I repeated, in the same irritable tone.

She chuckled. "Come on, let's buzz. Gotta drop this drek off and get paid already. Plus, Maxie needs to go see Kate."

Max shook her head. "No way, Blue. I'm fine."

I raised an eyebrow in puzzlement. "You need a medic?"

Max glared at me and Chloe. Mostly Chloe. "No. I'm fine." It would've been more convincing if she hadn't coughed blood on the N.

"Looks like that Talismonger got you good." I offered dryly.

"No, I'm fucking-" She coughed again, then paused. Her shoulders sagged. "I think I need a doctor."

Chloe snorted. "Yeah, you do. Now let's go already. The Johnson is probably bored as drek by now."

* * *

Kate was less than impressed with Max's state. "I swear, whenever I come in, it seems like it's always you three in here." She ran a hand down Max's ribs and the cuts there began to recede into themselves. Max winced the entire time. It was strangely satisfying. "I know better than to ask how you got these, but could you at least try not to get hit with internally damaging spells next time? Fixing these is expensive." Another hand waved and Max's eyes bulged as her hand shot to her chest.

"What the fragging hell was that?"

Alice chittered on Kate's shoulder. I'm fairly certain the little spirit was laughing. Kate just shrugged. "Something tore your heart lining. It's currently knitting itself back together."

"Well, it fragging hurts! How long is it going to take?"

I smirked from my perch by the door as I listened to her whine. Big bad Shadowrunner taken down by a nasty little booboo. Poor thing. Hah.

Kate turned to me. "You're up next, Victoria."

I frown. "But I'm not injured."

"You faced a lunatic shaman throwing internally damaging spells around like candy. I'm checking you over." Huh. That's quite the formidable face. I, um...

I averted eye contact, shook my head, and stood up. "I'm fine, Kate. No need to worry. I'll just be going and-"

"Sit down, Victoria."

I sat down.

* * *

I flicked another finger and watched yet another sub-fucking-par news story flicker out of view, replaced by yet more shit. What the hell were they doing to my company? I thought Dragons were supposed to have fucking standards.

I ditched the ChaseSpace newsfeed and opened up an intranet access page. The blinking 'Username' and 'Password' boxes felt almost... teasing. Taunting, even. Like they were laughing at me. Ms Victoria Maribeth Chase, CEO of Nothing and Global Leader in Fuck All. The Bastards.

Still. I tap a few keys and enter an ID I hadn't had to use since... well. Since before my parents died.

Username: VictoriaMaribeth

Password: chasingdreams

The screen flickered and a red message flashed. MATRIX ACCESS ONLY. I pulled out the connector cable, slotted one end into the deck and held the other to my temple. I took a breath, and jacked in to the Matrix.

* * *

The room that appeared in my mind then was one I hadn't seen for an even longer time than I'd not used the log-in. A large sandstone fireplace was set into one wall, a proper old-fashioned woodburning one and not the modern electrical monstrosities, sat under a large portrait of a familiar, unsmiling family. The opposite and the far walls were both lined with old mahogany bookcases. A genuine Persian rug lay in the middle of the room, covering the flagstones that made up the floor. At Feng-Shui-proper angles to the rug and facing the fireplace were two red-upholstered sofas, each with a small table at either end.

I walked over to the far sofa and sat down, smiling when a menu flickered into life beside me. I tapped the third option, then stood as another screen appeared above the fireplace. I walked over and picked the options over each of my parents' hearts.

The hunt began. If I were some kind of pirate, or perhaps one of those creepy old archaeologist men from the tri-vids, I'd rub my hands together and cackle in anticipation. But I was rather more refined than that, so I simply turned to the shelves. Let's see if I remembered the old codes.

Fourteen along, eight up... Aha. From Impressionism to Post-Impressionism. My Au-Pair used to read to me from this to get me to sleep. I pull the top of the book out, leaving it jutting out of the shelf at a 45* angle. I step away just as it starts to glow, and another menu pops up. I select the third option and move on again.

I found the second book, The Fall: New York's Nit and Grit, at six along, two up. I pull it out to 45* again, snorting as I do. I cannot believe I was so foolish in school, crushing on that psychopathic fucker. A flash of a dark room makes me shudder in detached horror. Until this lunacy, that was the closest to death I'd ever been. There's nothing to break hero worship like said hero trying to kill you.

I shook my head to clear the thoughts and move on. Just like the shrink taught me.

The final book was my own, 'The Rise of the Nouveau Art-Riche', written just after I took over the ChaseSpace. I was so proud. And for once, so were my parents. After that, I showed them just how wrong they'd been about me. Damn them.

I went back and sat down on the sofa again. The menu this time was far shorter, showing only one option. 'Are you sure?'

"Yes."

The menu vanished and the room slowly faded away. I blinked in the darkness, and suddenly the vibrant blue of the Matrix appeared around me as I dropped into the entry crossroads. I was in.

I took an immediate left, dodging around the alarm ICE that made up the outer perimeter of my company's security. No sense letting anyone know I'm here this early.

The pathway lead forward for about thirty yards - not that there was any real distance in the Matrix - and took a sharp right. I followed it along, grinning when I spotted the first hub. Looked like... personnel. Excellent. I tapped into the data and downloaded the lot to my deck. If Lofwyr or that prick he'd assigned to run my company in my... absence had hired anyone, I'd know who to take kneecaps from. Plus, regular status reports from my employees would help me find out what they'd wrecked and how I'd need to fix it. Incompetent wretches.

That done, I headed back to the initial crossroads, then carried on straight across to the next hub: external financials. Here would be anything Lofwyr paid to anyone outside the company. I'd have to be clever and the payments would definitely be well hidden, but if he'd paid anyone to hunt for me after he'd taken over, it'd be somewhere in here.

I dodge another few ICE defences and download what I can from three more hubs: draft articles, prospective leads, and the informal employee chatlog. The latter was supposedly hidden from managerial view, but I'd found it years ago and kept an eye on it. If I erased it, another would simply pop up elsewhere, so what would be the point? At least this way I could keep tabs on what my employees were saying.

I was almost perversely pleased to see that they were all miserable. Apparently the new boss was something of an intolerable hardass. I hummed with intrigue as I scanned the latest entries. He was driving the investigative reporters to look for something, but none of them were talking. Or writing draft articles, damnit. Juliet disappearing had been bandied about as an example of what happens to those who question the new management, so they were all worried.

Cowards.

Hmm. Wait. I headed back to the Matrix exit and dropped out, then brought up the downloaded external financials file. Most of it really was useless, just various consultants that the new management had brought in to see how my company worked, but a couple of hours of work revealed something... interesting. The earliest mentions of the reporters being bossed around correlated with a serious of payments to someone in the Allied German States. I didn't have a name, and another hour of searching revealed that I couldn't narrow down the location, but it was a start. Lofwyr took my company because he was looking for something. Did he think I had it?

Okay, Victoria. Think. What the hell could I possibly have that would catch the interest of a Dragon? Certainly not money, Lofwyr could buy my company three times over with his daily income and he practically owned Europe. So, what else? It could've been information. My reporters knew about a lot of skeletons and ChaseSpace was essentially an information conglomerate with fingers in every stage of the knowledge gathering process. But if that was it, why would he be getting my reporters hunting? So, maybe, but probably not.

This is going to need a lot of thought. Hopefully there was something in the files that would give me some ideas.

I pulled the downloads back up and started searching. This was going to be a long night.

* * *

AN1 -

 **Translations-**

Bronze - Cops (Shadowrunner version of 'the fuzz')

Lonestar - Private Security Firm with more real estate than a small African nation and more guns and tech than the entire American PMC network

Renraku - Bunch of racist Japanese computer makers

Fragging - Fucking

Buzz - Move

Drek - Shit

Talismonger - Shaman, comes from their usage of 'talismans' for summoning spirits

Ms/Mr Johnson - Nickname for anyone paying a Shadowrunner, allows anonymity necessary for work in corporate espionage/sabotage


	4. Rule One

Chapter IV: Rule One (POV) - Time

* * *

AN:

Hey there, Fan-fic-folks!

So, I'm trying an experiment with the decking part of this chapter. It's sort of a balance between transposing current hacking principles (what I can understand of them without a degree in coding, anyway) from our current computing tech to a more futuristic VR-sensorium program (eg. a DoS attack that, in modern terms, floods a network with defunct requests for access so legitimate users can't get access of their own and it sort of freezes up, in the Shadowrun world becomes a freeze program that you can throw to immobilise an ICE program) and what I like to call 'sunglasses-clad skull-gif hacker duelling' after the hilarious tropes that Hollywood seems obsessed with. Add 'em together and even things out so they make some consistent sense, then I think I got that 'rule of cool' thing nailed.

Also, yep. I did the thing. Had this plot twist planned since the beginning. Hope you enjoy.

Thanks for reading and, as always, please review.

* * *

I kept returning to the downloaded information for weeks afterward, scouring it for anything that might give me a hint as to what Lofwyr was looking for. Even the vaguest implication would be useful, if only to put me on the right path. I'd finally decided on a plan, see, and fulfilling it meant I'd need to strip Lofwyr of everything the bastard old worm owned. Everything he'd built I'd see destroyed, every design perverted, every employee turned. I'd burn it all away until nothing remained but the Great Dragon himself and then, and only then, would I put him down.

Robbing a dragon was an urban myth, something said to be pursued only by the idiotic or the suicidal. But none of them ad ever gone up against me. Never fuck with a Dragon? Hah. By the time I was done, they'd be warning dragons away from me!

It was late evening, just after a weekday run, when my confidence took something of a... hit. I'd gone back through my built in backdoor and was taking the latest uploaded reports from the search - apparently one of the operatives had found a possible lead in a Knight Errant server farm. An indirect lead, though. A codename in an almost entirely redacted file linked to surveillance pictures linked to a codename of a different, differently (But still almost entirely) redacted file. The phrase they used in the report was 'might be a lead'.

As my ex husband would say, 'Fuckin' A!'. I immediately turned to leave and cried out in pain as an attack ICE suddenly rammed into me. It felt like frost surging through my entire body as my firewalls locked the progression of the invasive halt-code. I tossed out a flashback program and backed the hell up. The program shook as my code wormed its way into the program and froze the thing's pursuit protocols in decoding mismatched target signals. Every ICE had a... priority list of sorts, it told it what to go after and in what order, and the flashback program just made it detect signal ghosts of everything it had ever seen. The ICE was left thoroughly confused. It wouldn't hold for long though - the code was obvious and easily purged by the automated framework adherence subroutines. So, I ran.

My brain was working overtime as I dashed off. Not due to the frost, though it was a good habit to break that kind of cognitive affect in all honesty, but due to the fact that I didn't recognise that ICE. Since I programmed this entire firewall from the BIOS up and knew every part of it better then my morning skincare routine, that meant someone was screwing with my software.

That meant there was a single, fatally important question: if they'd added one new countermeasure, what the frakk else did they add?

I neared the last corner, veering onto the final approach to the exit portal crossroads, and that's when I saw it. A sickly green, almost pulsating spider-form with spines running over its back like porcupine quills and wicked sharp bone blades for legs. I... I had no idea what this did. My code analyser was sending out alert after alert telling me to get the hell out and away from this thing, but not once did it give even a single feature of the code. All it said was 'Danger: Unidentifiable Black ICE'.

For those of you who don't know, Black ICE was the charmingly nondescript slang for Internal Countermeasures with very fatal effects. This thing could put me into a coma, melt my brain, destroy my kidney function, or even just kill me outright. The first three might not be immediately fatal, but you'd sure as hell wish you were dead, and it left you just enough dexterity and determination to get yourself that way.

And unfortunately for my panicking alert program, it was standing between me and the exit. There was no alternate route, no hidden secret path. Mainly because this _was_ the alternate, hidden, secret path. I couldn't go over, or around, or below. My only option was to go through.

I pulled up my program list, scanning through to see what offensive or distracting programs I'd slotted into my quickbar loadouts. Not much, really. Problem with equipping for a stealth mission, when it all goes horribly wrong and you need to be loud and highly deadly, you're out of luck.

Simply put, I was in deep shit.

So, I'd need a plan, because there was no way in hell I was dying here. Not before I'd slain a Dragon. George, eat your heart out.

Ooh. Now there's an idea.

I pull up an infiltrator program and send it out to the right, along with a second smaller program to the left. Once they were in position, I activate the left program. I'd called it the Krakker, back when I first coded it, in a reference to some old volcano that'd apparently been the loudest natural sound in existence. It used to be the loudest sound point blank until that lunatic Coyote pulled off the bloody Great Ghost Dance and detonated half the volcanoes in North America. Anyway, I felt the name described its function very nicely.

It exploded into light and sound and fire, spinning wildly on the spot as it did everything possible to attract the attention of the detection systems on every program in this network. The moment it did, the Black ICE spun and started toward it. That's when I activated the infiltrator and sent it in. Likely as not, I wouldn't be able to control or change the program, but I'd at least be able to find out what horrible fate I'd be avoiding when I kicked this thing's ass.

I also sent out another Krakker, this time to the right and along the pathway there. One never knew when another distraction would come in handy. Especially when - the skybox of the worldspace suddenly started to glow red as a loud klaxon sound blared - that happened.

My alert system had barely bleeped when I suddenly leapt left and out of the path of a flamer attack program launched by the two Ballistae ICE that'd now taken up positions along the route behind me. I responded with a packet-blaster to soften the program's firewall and followed it up with a degrader worm that rapidly broke the code of both programs down into code scraps.

A belated scream-alert from off behind me let me know that my first Krakker had gone down, so I quickly activated the next one and watched as the Black ICE turned and charged for the new target. The moment it passed the threshold of the crossroads path, I threw up a firewall program to block it off. It wouldn't hold a Black ICE for long, but it was enough time for me to dash along the new gap and exit out the portal to my home worldspace.

I sat down on the hard wooden (and illusory) floor, blinking and trying to catch my breath. Frag. What the hell was that? I needed more information, immediately. So, I stood up and started moving for the bookcases to activate the backdoor again, only to stop in horror and fury. Every last shelf in the worldspace was now empty. They'd closed off my fucking backdoor! The (long list of swear words) bastards!

I yanked off my deck and tossed it angrily to the table with a growl. What the hell was I supposed to do now? I slammed my hand down hard onto the metal of the desk, wincing in bitter satisfaction at the pain that blared up my arm and sent little twinges into my shoulder.

"Careful Ice, let that anger burn too hot and you might melt." A voice called out from the doorway. I turned to look, seeing my dwarfish roommate leaning against one side of the door-frame. Upon noticing my glare, Max flashed an irritatingly cheeky grin that I answered instinctively with a bitter scowl.

"Hardy har. You can frakk off, Max, if you're going to be like that." I flapped a hand in her vague direction, keeping what little veneer of good manners I could while burning with rage.

She rolled her eyes and strolled in, taking a seat on one of the drones that I'd 'condescended' to allow her to keep in here. I was determined this place was going to be temporary, so I couldn't make too many personal... alterations.

"So," She started, "What's bothering you?"

I glared at her. The girl smirked back. Damn her.

Fuck it. I sighed, then began to speak. I told her about some of my plans, holding back most of the specifics and sticking to general objectives and methodology: Attack Dragon, Steal from Dragon, Break Dragon, Kill Dragon. Simple enough, right?

When I finished, she leant back and whistled. "Ambitious. I like it. So, what do you need to do first?"

"Get information. There's a Knight Errant server farm that apparently has some useful information on."

"Knight Errant..." She murmured thoughtfully. "I think Chlo' mentioned we might have some biz with Knight Errant soon."

I eyed her sceptically. "Well. That's certainly convenient."

"Isn't it though?" She smiled. "It's always nice when life arranges itself to our convenience. Do you know where this server farm is?"

I shake my head. "Not yet. I need to review some information and do a little legwork to run it down."

She hmms in response. "Well, I'm pretty sure the Knight Errant run won't be for awhile, so you should have time to get all that biz done with. Do you want any help?"

I sigh. Until that patronising little question, this had been surprisingly amicable. I might actually have been getting along with the little hipster. "No." I state curtly. "I can do this myself."

She just smiles. "I'm sure you can, Ice. Well," She stands up. "I guess I'll come find you when you're done. Good luck."

I scoff. "I don't need luck."

She smiles again, shakes her head, and leaves without another word. Thankfully. I twirl with a huff and grab my deck. My source of information was gone, but that wasn't the end of it. What I had could get me answers, I just needed to find them.

* * *

It took three hours, but I did it. I found the farm. Like there was ever any doubt I would. The convenient coincidences really were stacking up in my favour - the farm was right here in Seattle. Honestly, I was getting slightly suspicious. Next they'd tell me Lofwyr's super secret stash of company documents was in an unguarded briefcase in a bus station locker.

Now I knew the location, there was so much more I could do. I spent the next hour hunting down floor plans, security documents, guard rotations, anything I could get that would allow us to break in unnoticed.

I'd been finished for around ten minutes - which I'd used to stare blankly at a wall while I planned and pondered - when Chloe poked her head into my room. "Hey Vicky-"

"Don't call me that." I quickly interject, hoping to cut that nickname off at the knees before it can learn to walk.

From Chloe's grin, I only made things worse "Maxie says she told you 'bout the Knight Errant run. Didya find out where this server thing was?"

I gave the brief overview, and she pursed her lips regretfully. "Not our place, dude. Sorry. But we can go there next, I guess? Do a little overtime?" Her guileless attempt at comfort was... irritating.

"Acceptable." I said, wanting nothing more than to get on with things.

"Wiz." Chloe continued. "Well, we got a run on today, so get that ornery butt out here already. Or should I get Maxie to come in here and Chase you out?"

I swallowed a groan of disgust and pointedly ignored her subsequent comment about spoilsports. "It's fine. Let's go, then." I pushed past her and stalked out into the main room, my heels clacking on my metal floor before the sound got muffled by the tacky, effusive, and rapidly multiplying carpets Max had scattered all over the floors of the main room. Her simple and vastly unfashionable solution to the problem of my loud shoes.

She should probably just be grateful I wasn't wearing my normal stilettos. Not only were they far louder on metal, they also had a hypodermic needle with a fast acting poison in the heel and a shock-pad in the toecap. I'd kick her in the snatch in a heartbeat.

Max was sitting on the couch, a long box in her hands. As I stormed calmly in, she glanced past me and grinned. I generously ignored their knucklewalker mockery and barked out "Well? Are we going or what?"

Max rose with a nod. "Yep. We're heading into an Aztechnology branch to grab a thing."

"What thing?"

"A thing. It's big and round and blue and I have no frakking idea what it is. But we gotta find it."

I nodded in acknowledgement. A thought occurred. "Wait. Aztechnology? As in the Corporate Court position-holding, second largest company in the world, owner of an entire continent Aztechnology? I thought we were running against Knight Errant?"

Chloe nodded. "Uh, yeah. That Aztechnology. Why? What's the problem?"

I gulped and shook my head, feeling the dread tingle up and down my spine. "Oh no, this is a bad idea."

Max wafted a hand at me, utterly unfazed by my panic and still as amiable and hipster-ey as ever. "Oh, it'll be fine. Don't sweat that drek, Ice. We'll go in, stay quiet, find the thingy, and be out before you know it. Nice and easy."

* * *

"Eat fire, you undead fucks!"

Chloe's voice really did carry. Even from the other side of the complex, I could hear her yell as she slammed down the button on the detonator.

"Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuckity fuck, fuck fuck!" I muttered as I fled from the explosions now racking the Aztech complex. People were screaming, alarms were screaming, rapidly firing turret emplacements were screaming. Good fucking times all round at the Aztech Place.

Chloe and Max had both disappeared a while back, split off by the initial response to our 'sneaking' through restricted areas. I was alone. Aside from the red and white armoured Aztechnology Vampire Commandos chasing me down, anyway. Ugh. Poor, disgusting bastards. Getting the HMHV Virus was probably the worst thing to happen to these people, and the idiots embraced it to become bloodsucking monsters.

I emptied my clip off to my left, the bullets tearing through the armour and ripping the desiccated flesh of the Vampire Commando that was about to put a bullet in my head. Eerily accurate, these creatures. One myth of Vampirism the old world got right.

A quick reload later and I started firing again, then ducked into a side hall as soon as I saw the thing ash. I quickly dash off and somehow miraculously manage to lose them while heading up to the next floor. Lucky for me, someone had left a remarkably unsecured server room right there and I found a terminal to plug into. Trying to locate my erstwhile colleagues within the system itself would be a death sentence for them - so I was more than tempted to try it - but instead I started dismantling security.

First down were the cameras. Bloody things were everywhere, and then they weren't. Second, the 'lasers' over every door, window, corridor, and otherwise. One of the things that triggered the alarms in the first place, when we without intranet ID walked through them, and now they were gone. Finally went the drones, not that there were many of them. Maybe a dozen in the whole complex. Anyway, they were down too now.

I left the alarms, though. Maybe the noise would cover any I made to the vampires. Worth a shot, as Chloe would say

After that frantic five minutes of work, I got the hell out. I didn't know if they could track intranet usage, but better safe than shot. Or bitten. Or slashed, or broken, or punched, or-

Right, leaving.

I eased open the door and checked both ways, seeing nothing. So, I crept out and started along to the stairs again. Our target was on the 85th floor and I was still down on the 83rd. I got up to floor 84 and stepped through, smirking as it let me through without a problem. I love computers.

This floor was what they called 'low priority R&D'. In corporate jargon terms, it's for the 'storage of long-term payoff, low resource intensity research operations'. In English, it's the crap they don't really care much about but need to keep around anyway for one reason or another. Usually publicity. I had a similar area for useless employees I couldn't get rid of. Rather than firing them directly like they deserved and getting bad publicity from it, I had them all put on sinking projects and then downsized when the project was cut. Clever, right? My ex certainly thought so. The Prescott Foundation initiated a similar practice a few months after I took the helm of ChaseSpace.

For the Aztechnology branch, this was mostly arcane tech. Not being magical in any way, shape, or form, I hadn't the faintest idea what any of it did. The small tree of what looked like floating plums certainly was... striking, though.

I kept forward, striding through the silent, shadowed rooms. The main overlights hadn't engaged. They were trigger-attached to the door lasers, but my hack had negated that connection. The low red emergency lighting was pleasant, though, dark as it was.

...can Vampires see in the dark?

I cleared the floor as fast as I could after that little gem of a thought occurred.

The 85th floor was just as dark as the 84th, though I could only see a corridor of it rather than an open-floor plan room of the entire thing. I still hadn't heard anything from Chloe and Max, but I supposed they must be still alive. I think the Vampires would've found me by now, if they weren't.

I followed the corridor along, taking a left at the first t-junction, then going through a door to my right into a foyer-room with a large statue in the centre of it. Icarus, the fool of ambition. Interesting decor for one of the biggest megacorporations in the world. Some idiot middle manager probably had it put up without bothering to read up on their idea first. Pity, really, that Aztechnology doesn't like firing its employees. This one would merit it.

I bypassed the interesting statue and went through the sliding door on the other side of the room. This should be the main corridor, so my goal is over... there! I hurried over and slid the door open, stepping into the next room with a smile. The vault door was embedded in the far wall, at the top of a small ramp. It was an impressive thing of ugly metal with gears and pistons to allow them to move its massive bulk. Even a Troll would struggle to manually lift this thing. I chuckled, heading up the ramp and over to the infinitely recognisable security terminal plugged into the side of it. "A Tolman? How meagre. It's like Aztechnology w _ants_ us to steal this thing."

I plugged into the console and had the codes cracked in three seconds.

As I detached my deck and the blue skybox of the Matrix had gone, a small, sudden noise alerted me. Company. I turned slowly, knowing I was cornered by the Vampires. They were quiet. Max and Chloe would've yelled my name the moment they walked in. Sure enough, a full squad of vampires stood at the bottom of the ramp, aiming their guns up at me. I could see them salivating, practically oozing their desire to eat me. Fucking cannibals. Well, anthropophagus individuals, anyway. It's only cannibalism if you're eating your own species, no? Either way, they were terrifying predators coiled to strike at any moment and I was doing everything I could not to trigger them.

I very slowly raised my hands.

Two of them split off from the group and started forward, ready to take me to whatever interrogation chamber and body-disposal unit they'd been told to, when the wall began to quake.

We all looked over, seeing the masonry and metal quiver with repeated impacts like it was a sack of hornets. "What's..." I breathed out, and then the wall exploded.

Most of the vampires closest to the wall were knocked down, but some of the more distant ones were prepared enough and fast enough to dodge the cloud of razor sharp shards and dust. Two of the vampires, the ones right by the wall, were ashed instantly as their heads were severed from their bodies and the rest of their follows were scattered like blood-craving bowling pins.

Through the gap in the wall strolled a large, blue haired troll, dwarf-sized girlfriend on one side, and dwarf-sized minigun on the other. She grinned at the destruction. "Hey Ice. These kids bothering you?"

I stared, mildly slackjawed. That fucking girl has finally lost what could charitably be called her 'mind'. Where did she even get a minigun? We did not bring that thing with us.

One of the vampires makes a move, barely twitches, really, but Chloe shifts the barrel of the minigun an inch and lets loose a roar of bullets that shreds the little wretch into pieces. Max plugged her fingers into her ears with a grimace. The others immediately raise their weapons and move to shoot. They manage to get off a round or two each, maybe even a clip, before Chloe's minigun roars again and another vampire disintegrates into dust. The rest of them raised their guns and started firing. Max immediately dodged to the left, tossing out a couple of grenades as she vanished behind a wall. Chloe just stood and took it, firing back with her minigun.

I take the opportunity to spin and check on the door. It was just open enough for me to squeeze through, so I dashed into the gap and shimmied through. From the yell of "Get away from her!" outside, apparently one of the two that'd come to get me made a grab for me and missed, luckily. I lazily loosed off a couple of rounds into the gap, smirking at the small squeals of pain from whatever vampire tried to get fresh with me.

Now, to the room. Chloe and Max had the vampire situation in hand. The room was small, maybe eight feet tall, fifteen wide by twenty long from the door. Each side wall was lined with workbenches that had various devices on. The middle of the far wall had a detached display case, topped by a glass box with a thing in it. It was as described. Big. Round. Blue-ish. A pale lettered inscription on the glass said 'Oudun MSK ', whatever that meant.

"Found it!" I called back outside.

"Great!" Chloe grunted. "Now grab the thing so we can - back the frag off, bitey! - buzz outta here already!"

I take the butt of my pistol and thwack the side of the glass. It doesn't crack. How annoying. I let my eyes drift over the thing, studying the outer layers of protections around it. Ah! There's an access port in the side. I plugged in and tried to access- something fizzed and immediately launched me across the room. I hit the wall, and partly the ceiling, with a muted crack that I knew was probably my skull. Why is it always me that gets the concussions? Sliding down to the ground felt like it happened in slow motion, all my limbs just too heavy to keep aloft from the nice, solid ground where they belonged.

Everything was a little... glowy? I blinked and shook my head - bad idea, bad idea! - trying to clear the driftiness. I could hear ringing in my ears, alongside the constant cracks of gunfire outside, and everything was numb and foggy, like a visual version of when you sit on your hand and get strong enough pins and needles in it that it doesn't even feel like your limb anymore.

I could feel myself drifting more and more when suddenly, a burst of energy exploded through my body and I pulled my head upright - almost on autopilot, really - to look around me. The door was still going, nearly open now though, and that damnable glass casing was still sealed up.

I thought it was just my head spinning, but the glass casing was... moving? It seemed like it was... shaking? That's... discomfiting, and is the floor shaking too? Oh, no. That's the whole room. Is this an earthquake? That's an obnoxious security safeguard, Aztechnology!

There was an electronic, discordant laugh, and as I heard the door finally grind to a halt, a voice just on the edge of my awareness drawled a quiet, laconic "Showtime."

Then, everything went black.

* * *

"Hey, Ice! Come on, get up, we gotta go! Those Knight Errant fucks know we took their system and they are pissed!" Two burly arms hoisted me to my feet and planted me standing, then quickly dusted me off as a blue-topped face appeared in my eyeline. Well, dominated my eyeline, really. "You okay to move?"

I shoved the troll off me - she moved entirely of her own accord - muttered "I'm fine, let's go before the damn vampires catch-". I started to stride past her when her words registered. "Knight Errant?" And also the location. No glass casing, no vault door, no workbenches. We were in the corridor outside a glass-windowed server farm covered in the KE diamond logo. "What..? Where's the..?"

Chloe appeared in my eyeline again. "Dude, what the frakk are you talking about? We geeked those bloodsuckers a week ago, chummer. We're in that KE server farm you found, remember?"

"No, you-" I rubbed a hand across my face in confusion. That can't be right. We were in the Aztech complex... "Tell me the truth!"

"I am!" She looked almost insulted at the thought. "It's the chip truth, Ice, I swear. You got some dumpshock from the server or something? That knockback you just took was pretty bad."

"No, I..." What knockback, I don't remember any- Images filter into my head, scattered images, of breaking into a building and interfacing with the server, then getting shocked and flung out of the room. "I don't know... later. Let's get out of here."

"Wiz. Slot and run, Maxie, Ice's got static and we're getting the frakk outta dodge!"

The little dwarf appeared at Chloe's shoulder, then tapped something on her rig. Several drones flew past us from all directions, firing at unseen targets. I pulled myself upright and took a step forward, then flopped down. I would've had another head injury if it weren't for Chloe's surprisingly fast reflexes. She held me for a moment, then shrugged and slung me over her shoulder. I didn't resist, too caught up panicking inside my own head. It'd been a week? Why couldn't I remember what I'd done? She stormed off alongside Max, taking potshots at more KE operatives. We made it back to the exit point in minutes, then out onto the street. It was close, but we managed to get back to Nana's neighbourhood without a problem.

Of course, then we made a problem. See, I'd resolved my internal dispute by crushing it into a box in the corner of my mind to deal with later and had heard Max's proposal of a new destination. While Chloe agreed, I wasn't pleased by her suggestion. "I don't need to see Kate."

Chloe crossed her arms and glared. "You're dizzy, concussed, and you can't recall drek since the Azzie run a week ago. Yeah, you need to see Kate."

"No."

"Yes."

"No."

"Yes."

"No."

"Ye-"

"Quiet." Max waved a hand. Chloe immediately shut up.

I smirked. "No."

The little dwarf glared at me. "She's right, Ice. You're injured. You need to see the doc."

"No, I just need you to tell me what happened." I crossed my arms and glared right back, belligerent to the end. I had my hill, and if I was to die on it, so be it. "Now. I need to know."

"And if we do, you'll go see the doc?" Max raised an eyebrow.

I rolled my eyes. She's really not shifting on that position? Fine, whatever. I could retreat to another hill, if it got me what I wanted. "Fine, agreed. Now, what happened?"

The two of them exchanged looks, doing that weird couple-telepathy thing they'd been doing for as long as I'd known them. Always wandering around at school, talking without talking. Little weirdos. "Well, the Azzie run practically resolved itself. We'd taken out most of the vamps when you got outta the room with the sphere thing and took out the last few before demanding we leave already. You spent most of the week holed up in your room goin' through your KE drek-drop of data 'til you came out at, like, six this morning and demanded we do this run today. We got here, geeked some guards, and you went in the server room while we kept lookout. Something exploded, alarms went off as you flew out into the corridor and hit your head, and you know what happened from there."

Hmph. Well that was singularly useless. I should not have made that concession. Well, now I know that whatever happened was due to something in the server room, I suppose. Maybe I tripped some faulty Black ICE and this is just some small-time biofeedback playing merry hell with my head? If so, it's not something Kate could help with. Either way, I made a deal. Damnit. "Thanks. Let's go."

They exchanged looks again, before taking positions at each side of me and escorting me to the chopshop. At least they didn't gloat.

Kate smiled up at us when we walked in. Her doctor-demeanour was in full force today. She always was the nice one. "Good afternoon. What seems to be the problem today?"

Chloe picked me up and basically dropped me into one of the beds. I landed with a thump and all the breath rushed out of me. If I wasn't trying to get it back, I would've glared at her as she grinned at me. "Ice's head is fragged."

"Chloe!" Max reprimanded her with a shrill voice and a sharp elbow. I wasn't sure what she was reprimanding Chloe for, her words, her tone, her dropping me, or maybe Chloe just hogged the covers last night, but it was definitely a reprimand for something. Chloe didn't even flinch, just chuckled and ambled over to lean against one of the walls, crossing her arms.

"Well, she is! She can't remember any of the drek that happened over the last week and she can barely stand up. That sounds pretty fragging fragged to me."

Kate snorted. "I'll thank you to kindly leave the medical decisions to me, Chloe." She took a machine over to me and began to scan me. "Hmm. There is some evidence of neural trauma, though the cause is... hmm. Could you remove the ring around your neck? The Data Storage format is apparently interfering with the scan."

I sat up immediately, ignoring the twinges of pain and the head-spinning dervish that threatened to push me back into the black of unconsciousness. "My ring?"

Kate frowned at me. "Yes, the ring. I assume you were on a datasteal job of some sort and you're using it as hidden storage. Very clever, incidentally. I wouldn't have noticed without doing this specific neural-information scan-type."

The other two are staring between me and the ring, looking bewildered. "You didn't tell us that thing was hidden storage, Ice."

"That's because she didn't know."

The datajack in my temple suddenly flared brightly and we all whirled to stare at the glowing figure suddenly standing in the doorway. W-wait. I know that voice. Oh Jesus I _know_ that voice. Recalled images suddenly fly through my head like a flickering slideshow of way-too-late realisations. I heard it back when this all started and I heard it when I hit my head the first time and... I'd woken up next to its owner for almost four years.

The figure stalked forward with an almost animalistic, predatory gait, like a lion on the great plains. Familiar, gelled blond hair, familiar, sharp blue eyes - and weren't they just as amused and mocking as ever - and a smirk so familiar I practically ached on seeing it.

"Honey," drawled my long-dead husband, "I'm home!"

* * *

I blinked at the image of Nathan frakking Prescott and my head cleared entirely, though the spinning became reeling and the bewilderment became sheer, heart-racing anxiety. Everyone turned to look at me. "You're married?!"

"Not for seven fucking years. Not since this asshole disappeared and was declared legally dead!"

Nate shrugged, gave a wry little grin. "Well, reports of my death, etcetera, etcetera." He paused. "Actually, scratch that. Not so exaggerated." He flashed me a boyish grin that made my teeth ache with the automatic need to return it. I clenched down on them though, feeling the ache spread throughout my whole jaw with furious satisfaction. There was no way I was going to smile at him. Never again. Not for him.

The silence stretched out awkwardly as I glared and everyone else just looked shocked and/or confused. Nate rubbed the back of his neck nervously, another mannerism that sent pangs of familiarity spreading through me to join the aches that I was carefully ignoring along with everything else as I forced myself not to cringe in anticipation when his hand rose. "Long time no see, huh?"

"Long time no..?" The bastard. The absolute frakking bastard. The fear vanished, replaced by anger. I thoroughly embraced it. I'd spent too long afraid. "You piece of drek! Where they hell have you been? It's been seven years!" I made to stand up, to storm over and slap him like he justly deserved, but Kate's comforting hand on my shoulder was enough for me to keep control.

He chuckled. "Nowhere you wanna hear about, babe. Trust me. There are far more important questions to ask."

I opened my mouth to retort something bitter and angry, feeling my mind drop into that old pattern of defensiveness and attack and feeling oh so small and stupid that so characterised the later years of our marriage, when the fact that there were other people in the room was suddenly brought to my attention. Chloe was hard to ignore. "Ain't drek we wanna ask you, Presc-dick."

Nathan turned to her with a mocking grin. "Oh, how very clever. Then again, I wouldn't expect better from you, drop-out. Told back then if you kept up the company you did, then you'd stay just as fragging stupid as ever and look! I was right!" He turned further, taking in the still-shocked expressions of the rest of the room with visible pleasure. He was almost quivering with it. "Oh, hey! The gangs all here! The Dropout, The Dwarf, and Killer Katie!" He gave a dark little chuckle. "Man, if any of you had any talent, you could start a band!"

Chloe bristled and made to retort, but I decided to cut in. This could go on for awhile and I was far too fucking angry to let it. I steadied my hands and took a breath. "Look, Nate. We're not married anymore, and I lost interest in you long before that changed. Why the fuck are you here? What will it take for you to drop your shitty hologram and back the frakk out of my life again?"

"Well, is that any way to talk to someone who's about to-" Nathan suddenly stopped, stared at me, his smile broadening. "Wait, you think I'm a hologram? What, I'm just sat off in some shithole backroom somewhere laughing at you while I hack into that little bitty box in your head, just to say hi after all this time?" He laughed disbelievingly and shook his head almost fondly. "Man, Vic. You're smarter than that. If you were that stupid, you wouldn't've done drek with ChaseSpace. Youngest CEO in a Century and all that." He leaned in, grinning again. "Try again. Work it out. You got this, babe." He paused, pursed his lips. "Though you kinda have been gettin' hit in the head a lot recently..."

I sigh. When Nate got some little game in his head like this, he'd never let it go. Frankly, I just wanted him to get the frakk away from me, but that wasn't gonna happen while he was still in my systems and I didn't have my deck in reach. "Fine." I began to look him over. First, a brief scan. He was transluscent, another mark for my hologram theory, but... hmm. Wait. There was no signal flicker. Matrix latency should make the image flicker, ever so slightly, but nothing. Either he's in the damn ward - which I doubt, but could be possible - or he's not sending over the Matrix. The latter was even more doubtful, the Matrix was linked into everything on the planet and Nate had neither the interest nor the intellect to find any pre-crash Lostech that might actually work.

A mote of something coalesced in my mind, brief inklings of a possibility that this might be something... big. Unless he's lying, of course. Which is more than likely, knowing this prick, but if he's not lying and he's really not a hologram, then maybe he's...

Just one time, while I was visiting Nathan at his dad's company headquarters, I'd met one of the sentient programs that inhabited certain portions of the Matrix. What name he went by, I can't recall, but I do remember how... solid, his manifestation was. I mentioned my recollection and Nate grinned. "Getting warmer, Vic." He drawled, his best car salesman tone on full blast.

Okay, so he's definitely getting at what I think he's getting at, but that's impossible. "You're not an AI, Nate. You were a person, you can't become an AI, that's not how it works."

"Bwaaap! Wrong! Sorry pretty lady, but you're out!" He shook his head again. "I really thought you'd be a little more open minded than that. Too bad, Vic. It's true."

I scoffed, rolled my eyes. "No, it's not. Frakk off, Nate. I'm not that person who'll just agree with you for whatever anymore. I have a gun and I will use it if you don't go. Now."

Nate groaned in irritation. "You have a gun? Hello? Artificial Intelligence here! Unless you put that thing to your own fucking temple, that's not gonna do drek."

"M-my temple..? You hacked my datajack?" My voice was quiet, timid, all the roaring fire and fury gone in an instant as I realised just what he was getting at by 'bitty box in your head'. My head. I reached up in horror and let my fingers graze over the metal embedded in my temple. This was wrong. This was a... a violation. Hit me, yell at me, degrade me, whatever, I'll fucking live. But now he's in my head. In my _mind._ I can almost feel his fingers ghosting down my spine, sending little tingles of fear through my entire datajack-wired nervous system. He can't take this away from me, he can't. He can't! I start to curl inward, burying my thoughts in rabid denials even as my voice bursts out of me like a whirlwind. "You bastard, how the fuck could-"

He sighed, and I could see his jaw clench. He was frustrated. Good, I thought, bitter and spiteful. I was trying to get angry again, but all I felt was small and alone. The hipster, the prude, and the fucking Trog being in the room didn't even register anymore. "No, Vic. I didn't... Ugh. Okay. Look, you remember what you were doing before that whole thing with Rach and the Shadowrunner whatevers? Back at your place?"

I could still feel myself shaking, and that little voice in my head dominated my thoughts, repeating those rabid denials of the situation over and over and over again. His voice just didn't register through the swirling haze. This was too much. I couldn't do this! He's in my head, fingers tightening around my mind. Everything I am, everything I was, everything I could be, he can see it all. It's wrong. It's wrong. This is all I have left. The only thing! I need to get him out. I need to get him out! Please, please, please, please, plea-

"Vic!"

All of a sudden, everything stops. The voice, my pounding heartrate, everything. All my awareness is taken up with the piercing blue eyes barely an inch away from mine. Nate reached up to gently run his thumb along my check. My breath hitched just as he was about to touch, but it went straight through my skin. My abusive, mercurial, son-of-a-bitch ex-husband gave me a small, sad smile full of terrifying levels of empathy. "You alright?"

I give him a rapid nod, and he backs off. "So, yeah. You downloaded something that night. Probably got it from my dad's company, right?"

I take a breath and give a clipped answer. "Juliet. She found files from a whistleblower. They worked for the Foundation."

He nodded. "Right. Thought so. Anyway. Yeah. Whatever you did woke me up. I just blinked and bam. I was in your head."

"But, how did..." Max asked, voice tentative. "How did you go from being alive to being an AI in your ex-wife's head?" Does she actually believe this... this bullshit! It can't be true.

Can it?

Nate shrugged. "No idea. Last thing I remember was looking up at this big, ugly frakking trog-" Chloe growled at the slight. "while he shot me in the head, then everything hurt and I was suddenly in your head being chased by the same damn troll. Everything went black again when you crashed the car, until last week in the Aztech complex." He grinned. "And let me tell you, I was frakking amazed to find you on a run there, babe. You were great. That thing with the gun and the vamp?" He leaned back slightly, almost talking to the ceiling instead of us. "So. Frakking. Hot."

I flushed at the comment, then shook my head to clear the embarassment. "Wait. What about the ring? You uploaded something to it?"

The face he made at my question... for the first time since I'd know him, Nate seemed almost... ashamed. "Uh, yeah. You remember when I proposed, and I put the film of-"

I rubbed a thumb absently over the ring as I gently breathe out the realisation. "You put the film of the proposal on it..." I looked up at him. "I'd forgotten about that."

"Yeah..." He rubbed the back of his neck again. "Well, I kind of deleted that before I died. Sorry." He rapidly moves on at my furious glare. "That thing there, it's a key now."

"A key to what..?"

Ah, Chloe. Asking the obvious questions, every time.

His smile broadened into a horrifically smug rictus of mocking pride. "Why, to the greatest treasure the world has ever seen, of course." He leaned in conspiratorially, his hands moving like a stage magician unveiling his grand finale. "The Hoard of a Great Dragon."

We stared for a long, quiet moment; the shocked silence was so palpable you could almost taste it on the air like a bad fart.

"Uh, sorry." Chloe waggled a long claw into her ear canal, pulling out an uncomfortably large gob of earwax that she flicked into the corner with a grimace. Kate made a face. "I thought you just said a frakking Dragon's Hoard."

"Yep." Nate grinned at all of us again. I could almost see the conniving twinkling twing of marketing trustworthiness from his teeth. "This, ladies and, uh, ladies, is the big score. This one is retirement money."

"Nate." The anger rose yet again, though this was tinged with exasperation. "What did you do?"

"Well, it was just there, and I felt like I was gonna-"

"Nate! What. Did. You. Do?!" I growled out each word, enunciating them into reality like the staccato cracks of gunshot. My inner voice crowed in satisfaction as he buckled, just a little, with each one.

He opened his mouth to respond, and I just knew he was going to try and pull some shit, so I jabbed a finger in his direction and yelled. Loudly. By the time my admonishing rant was over, Chloe and Max looked like they'd learnt several new insults and Nate had finally started to look cooperative. It was how his father had kept him on the leash.

He sighed. "I... I don't know."

"What are you talking about?"

"I don't know, okay! Like I said, last thing I remember was getting shot in the head. That's also pretty much all I frakking remember. I left work with a bunch of files - and that bitch Stacie on the desk said no to dinner again, by the way - went back to the apartment... and then the troll happened."

"So, uh... how do you know you have a frakking Dragon's Hoard out there to find?" Chloe asked, curiously.

He rubbed the back of his neck sheepishly, not meeting anyone's eye. "I maybe kind of stole it?"

If we weren't so shocked, the mouths of everyone in the room dropping open in near-instantaneous unison would've been comical. As it was, we were all far too distracted by what that idiot claimed to have done.

"You did what?"

"I, uh... yeah. Stole a Dragon's Hoard."

He's not lying. He really did that. He really broke the first frakking rule of this planet. Don't fuck with the wyrms.

Chloe's damn of tolerance burst and she began to laugh uncontrollably. I glared at her for a straight minute - she kept laughing anyway - before looking back to Nate with a growl. "Was it Lofwyr?"

He nodded, jerkily. "Yeah."

"Drek."

He nodded again. "Yeah."

I took a deep breath and started to talk through the summaries my mind was frantically making and analysing and readjusting. "Okay, so you stole Lofwyr's hoard somehow, then he sent a troll to kill you - and that means he came after me too, frakk - and he killed you and then you became an AI, but you have no idea how?"

"Yep. There're these gaps in my memory, like... like someone stole a bunch of the books of my life and I can actually feel them missing from the shelves in my head." He ran a hand through his hair and I didn't even smirk at his utter frustration.

Chloe chuckled. "A low-tech example from a suit like you? Frakk, Presc-dick, I'm impressed."

He snarled and made a rude hand gesture at her. She just chuckled harder.

My face began to spread into a slow, smug smile. This... this was what I was searching for. Exactly what I needed. That Dragon killed my husband - though he brought it on himself, idiot - and it took my home and my company and my people and now I can take the most valuable thing it owns. A Dragon's Hoard is rumoured to be millennia old, made up of collected artefacts, piled currency, and collated information. In the decades since the Awakening, nobody has ever found or stolen one. To be the first to do it and live?

That is a revenge worth burning the world for.

"Nate. What does this key open?" I held up the ring, still on the same chain around my neck it'd hung from since he died. "Specifically, I mean. Where and what is the lock?"

He shrugged. "Dunno. Memory gaps, remember?"

And there goes that plan. I knew this was too good to be true. "So, what you're saying is that you're entirely useless, then?"

He flashed me an affronted look. "No! No, no, not at all. What I'm saying is that I think I can find out. We need to check my apartment."

I opened my mouth to follow that lead up, but was interrupted by Max finally contributing to the conversation with the obvious question. "Your apartment? Why?"

"Because of-"

"Because of your stupid little diary, right?" Irritating thing. He was always writing in it. Therapist's orders, he claimed, the posturing prick.

He slunk forward from the doorway, muttering an annoyed "Journal. But, yeah. Unless you put it somewhere back at your place?"

I sighed. Again. Confirmation that this plan is going to be... difficult. More than I thought, despite going up against Lofwyr. "No. Your dad sold your apartment and everything in it except the Foundation's secrets."

Nathan whirled around, stared at me in utter horror. "He... sold my apartment?! Of frakking course he did, the bastard piece of drek, he'll rue the day he frakking-" I could see him building up along a crescendo of crazy, ranting and raving about his old man. I imagine that if he wasn't holographic, we'd all probably be covered in rabid spittle right about now.

I reached up to slap him, then had a thought.

I slapped myself.

Everyone in the room turned to look at me. Since that included Nate, I was fine with that. The pleasure of proving a theory also helped insulate some of the pain - I had a decent right slap-hook. Nate was downloaded directly into my head, right? That meant his AI program had to be somewhere inside my datajack, which was wired directly into my nervous system. All hundred billion neurons provided a pathway to his attention protocols, and as the slap connected and the pain began to spread, his programming would pick up on that signal and be unable to process anything else. The one pain at a time prioritisation rule was another vital neurological quirk for deckers to know. Came in very handy when dealing with the more... aggressive ICE programs.

"Yes, Nate, he sold your apartment. Get over it. We have more important things to worry about. What did you do with the diary?"

"It's a Journal! Chicks have diaries, men have journals. Stop that drek, Vic." He smirked. "Be nice." He shook his head and his eyes went distant. "Uh... well, I don't think I had it when the trog shot me, so it's probably still in the floor safe?"

My hand went straight to my temple and I began to rub in hopes of averting my incipient headache. I clamped down my jaw to contain the disbelieving cursing. Chloe had no such restraint. "You kept your diary in a frakking floor safe?"

"Journal!" Nate stamped his foot. "It's a frakking journal, how frakking hard is that to remember?"

"Not hard at all, Presc-dick." Chloe stopped, grinned. "Heh. Just like y-"

"Alright!" I held up a hand. "Later, Chloe. Where is this safe, Nate?"

"Under the-"

"Where under the damn floor?" I snapped. "Is it easy to find? Is it shielded? Could it still be there?"

He shrugged. "No idea. It was shielded, but the floor did blip" He demonstrated how much of a rise the safe made with an almost bollywood-style arm wave. "pretty frakking noticeably where it was, so whoever dad sold it to probably found it."

"He sold it to a small local subsidiary." They were so small as to be a veritable no-name, plus he'd used the sale to leverage a take-over barely a year later so they were just another part of the Prescott Foundation now. "It's an office space still, I think."

"They turned my home into a fucking office space? The frakking pricks..." Nate slumped, the most defeated I'd seen him in this entire conversation.

"Exactly. So, we need to know where the safe is. Can you tell us?"

He looked at us, almost askance. "Tell you?" His voice was indignant. Irritatingly so. "I'm coming with you, babe." His indignance vanished and he leered at me with a smirk, letting his eyes run up and down my body. Frakk, do I ever feel unclean. "You'd probably trigger some of the drek I installed in there without me. Wouldn't wanna get that pretty little ass of yours exploded now, would we?"

I took another deep breath. Calm, Victoria. Calm. You can't throttle him, anyway, and you've had too many knocks to the head already for that self-slapping method to be a practical consistent solution. "You can't come with us, Nate."

"Why not?"

"Because you're an AI created with some method previously unknown to anyone ever!" I may have been a little loud. "Because if anyone can see you, as they apparently can, letting you wander round is a recipe for getting every decker, sarariman, and gangster with any idea about anything on our case with everything they have! You're a thanatophobic researcher's literal wet dream, idiot!"

He blinked. "Oh. Well, if that's your problem..."

He vanished.

A few slow, shocked seconds passed, then he reappeared again. I barely noticed his smug grin as my mind raced through the newfound possibilities of this plan. "Problem solved?"

My mouth spread into a wide grin again, and this time it stayed there.

Chloe answered his presumably rhetorical question for me with a satisfied chuckle. "Oh yeah. Problem solved."

* * *

"So, you wan' my permission t'go on this... fools erran' to fin' some mysterious paydata that's s'pose t'be valuable to me?"

The lie was necessary. Nana was a smart woman and a canny operator, there's no way she'd let us go wandering off looking to go up against a dragon.

I bowed my head respectfully. "Yes, Nana. Our informant has a lot of information to provide, so we should be able to find it soon."

She stared up at me from her still obscenely ugly armchair, eyes crinkling as her gaze carefully assessed my sincerity, worth, chances of success, and a dozen other things I couldn't begin to guess at. There was a reason this woman scare- _intimidated_ me. One doesn't pull a tiger by the tail, rather from a mile away with large calibre firearms.

After a painfully long moment, she nodded. "You will do this thing, an' you will bring this information back to me."

The 'or else' was left implied.

The three of us exchanged looks, wondering what to do now. We looked to Nana. She rolled her eyes and, with a haughty sniff and an irritated look, waved us out of the room.

We stood, out in the street, still looking blankly at each other. When it started to get uncomfortable, I took a long, deep breath and started walking. "Come on. It's a long trip to the apartment."

Chloe groaned. "Walking? Oh drek..."

[END OF ACT I]

* * *

AN1 - This was something I was both incredibly sure and immensely unsure about. To my mind, any relationship with Nathan in his canon game state would've ended abusively, no doubt about it - but with Victoria's... attitudes, she might've ended up just as much of a contributor to that dynamic. They're bad for each other, but they're also the person who knows the other best in the world.

We as a society tend to view abuse - and bullying, on a less severe but still relevant level - as something quite one-sided and simple. One person with the power imposing their will on another without. It often is that simple, but not always, and that's part of what I'm trying to work through and examine in this story. To me the underlying reasons for why the abusers abuse and the bullies bully and the origins for those reasons are as interesting as helping the victims past the trauma and to build themselves up to be stronger. Making Victoria and Nathan both hella toxic for one another, but still the main (and possibly only) source of stability they each have, lets me look at both of those things at the same time. Cast vicariously as both victim and villain by the vicissitudes of fate and all that.


End file.
